‘The pros and cons, and why we ultimately decided to quit using them’.
Meal services have been increasing in popularity over the last few years, and Hello Fresh is the biggest one out there.
Who doesn’t want to spend less time meal planning and shopping in a crowded grocery store?
That’s why we decided to give them a try. My partner and I used Hello Fresh every week for six months before deciding it was no longer worthwhile for us.
Our experience may not reflect the typical experience with Hello Fresh, so we can’t speak for everyone. There may be additional pros and cons that I didn’t mention here, so keep in mind that this is all subjective and not comprehensive.
So, without further ado…
Hello Fresh Pros
Photo by Lily Banse on Unsplash
1. We got to try new recipes
This was my favourite thing about Hello Fresh. Every week we chose one or two meals we knew we would like and at least one meal that was on the more adventurous side for us.
If you’re not familiar with Hello Fresh, you can either get their default meals every week — these tend to be a good mix of their offerings — or you can choose your meals out of the 20-some they have available each week. They also have add-ons, like desserts, a la carte sides, and lunch offerings. Then, they deliver those meals the following week, all pre-portioned for either 2 or 4 people.
We always chose our meals because we just didn’t like leaving it up to them to decide. We really liked that we could try new, professionally developed recipes that were already tried and true.
I have a few new favourite dishes that I tried for the first time with Hello Fresh — so that made the service worthwhile in itself.
And while I’m on the subject, their recipes really are fantastic. In the six months we used them, we only disliked a small handful of recipes, and we were pleasantly surprised by many others.
2. We didn’t have to plan meals and shop as much
We really enjoyed the convenience of Hello Fresh. It meant fewer trips to the store and less time agonizing over the dreaded “what should we have for dinner?” question.
We chose our meals the week before and then they showed up on our doorstep with pre-portioned ingredients the following week. Easy peasy.
This saved us a lot of time and it helped us avoid the grocery store at the height of the pandemic.
We stuck with Hello Fresh for six months primarily for this reason — it was just so dam convenient.
3. We learned new cooking techniques
There are a few simple cooking techniques and tricks we learned from Hello Fresh that have taken all of our meals to the next level.
Now we can make the best rice in town. We know how to spruce up a meal with a drizzle and a little pico de gallo, and we learned that we were using far too little lime in our meals.
Dinners are so much more enjoyable, even now that we’re on our own, thanks to the techniques we picked up while cooking Hello Fresh recipes.
4. We got to keep the recipe cards for our dinner repertoire
We still have the recipe cards from our favourite Hello Fresh dishes and we pull them out when we’re deciding what to make for dinner or lunch each week.
It’s been fun making the meals we love with our own twist. We can make substitutions for balance, health, or taste preferences, and we have the option to double their recipes, so we have leftovers.
It also helps keep us supplied with fresh meal ideas when we really just don’t know what to plan for the week.
Hello Fresh Cons
Photo by Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash
1. It’s a little pricey
We got three meals a week with portions for two and it came out to about $11 per meal, per person.
That’s nearly restaurant pricing.
When you factor in the convenience of having pre-portioned ingredients and recipes delivered right to your door, it really is a great value. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s more expensive per meal than traditional home-cooked meals.
Now that we’re no longer using Hello Fresh, we regularly make dinners that come out to around $5 or less per person instead. That’s without much effort to keep our meal costs down.
2. The recipes got repetitive
There’s a good chance that we gravitated towards the same types of recipes every week, but even so, they became repetitive.
After a few months, it seemed like most of the meals were using the same cooking techniques and concepts repeatedly.
It was a lot like a mix and match meal. As if they had a list of proteins, drizzles, veggies, and spices and then just put them together. Yeah, the meals were good, but after a while, we could almost cook them without looking at the recipe cards.
This was okay for the first few months because we really liked the food, but there’s only so much of the same thing you can have without feeling like you could have cooked a more interesting meal yourself.
3. Inconsistent quality
Floppy cucumber, anyone? How about slimy brown scallions? Or a non-existent ingredient?
The first time it happened we figured “eh, well, they can’t be perfect all the time.” But then it happened the next week and again a couple of weeks after that. It was starting to become the norm — and let me tell you, having to run to the grocery store in the middle of cooking dinner gets old fast.
Even when the produce was usable, half of the time it wasn’t the same quality that we would have picked up at the store ourselves. Small, bruised, or discoloured produce was what we came to expect in our Hello Fresh boxes.
4. It wasn’t as healthy as we wanted
We tried to choose the healthier, more balanced meals while still getting things that were going to taste good and teach us something new.
The problem we ran into was that even the healthier meals were fairly high in calories. We didn’t see many “low calorie” options that were compelling and unique enough to try. The few we did try were alright, but it seemed like the lower-calorie recipes weren’t their strong suit.
In the same vein, we often found the veggies lacking. Sometimes a small onion and a single roma tomato were the only vegetables in the recipe — and we had to share.
An advantage of keeping their recipe cards is that we can make healthy substitutions. For example, we substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream and bump up the veggies to make the meals more balanced.
It would have been nice if Hello Fresh made an effort to provide healthier meal choices that weren’t full of gross cauliflower rice (not a fan).
5. Flaky delivery
They use a third-party delivery service to get the meals out, which means it isn’t always 100% reliable.
Once they didn’t even deliver our box and we had to order take-out instead. Three days later we got the box full of spoiled food.
Another time they dropped it off at night when we were in bed, and yet another time they delivered it to the wrong address, and we had to go get it.
I am extremely protective of my food when I’m hungry, so when it doesn’t come on time (or at all), I get cranky, to say the least.
When our box got lost Hello Fresh wasn’t able to resend our meals, but they refunded the cost for the missing box, which we appreciated. Their support team handled the issue well even if the delivery was out of their hands.
We had to come to terms with the fact that our meals might not be delivered by the time we wanted to make dinner, or perhaps at all.
Ultimately, this was one of the last straws for us.
Photo by Sebastian Coman Photography on Unsplash
Final Thoughts
Hello Fresh is great for those who like to cook (or want to start) and are looking for new, tasty meals. But it’s not without its risks.
We learned a lot from Hello Fresh and we use their recipe cards to this day, but the inconsistent quality and delivery made it hard for us to continue the service.
They came in clutch for us when we needed some inspiration and new cooking techniques, so they’re worth a try if you find yourself in the same boat.
