Is HelloFresh Worth the Money?

neil on 18/01/2017 at 2:14 pm, filed under OzBargain

HelloFresh Box

After getting bombarded by referral SPAM not only on OzBargain but in my own letterbox, a good deal was finally posted for HelloFresh.  The company describes their service as nutritionally balanced recipes based on seasonal farm fresh ingredients delivered every week to your front door. Once a week, the company delivers you a box full of fresh food as well as recipes saving you from having to go to the supermarket or think of dinner ideas. Five days worth of Classic Box meals for 2 people costs $109.95 ($11 per meal) and $189.95 ($9.50 per meal) for 4 people.

The deal

First Food Box Delivered Free – EG 4x People 5x Meals Classic Box Worth $189.95 @ HelloFresh (New Customers)(Excludes WA/NT/TAS). 

Food boxes

The codes provided in that deal allowed the first box free for any of their three plans.

  • Classic Box is a selection of meat, fish, chicken and pork dishes.
  • Veggie box is a selection of vegetarian dishes.
  • Family Box is like the Classic Box but more kid friendly.

For my purposes, I ordered the Classic Box. For some reason, you can order the boxes as a subscription or as a trial box however the trial boxes are more expensive. All of the subscription boxes can be cancelled after one order so it seems a bit strange to pay more for the same thing.

Ordering

Ordering is very straight forward. Just pick the box and then a delivery time. They have some strange delivery times including 2AM-8AM for the nightowls. I suppose you can tell them to leave the package out front but for mine, they hit the buzzer to inform me of delivery.

When paying you can choose to use Paypal. This is good as you can very easily cancel reoccurring payments in Paypal at a click of a button whereas you’re at the mercy of a store’s website to cancel a credit card auto-payment.

 

Cancelling

 

  1.  Log into your account and click  Deactivate my subscription.

Cancel 1

2.  Click Deactivate right away

cancel2

3. Optional. If you’ve paid via Paypal, log into Paypal and select the transaction listed under Grocery Delivery E-Services and click Manage Grocery Delivery E-Services payments.

cancel3

4. Optional. Click Cancel in the status section.

cancel 4

5.  Optional. Click Yes to confirm cancellation.  This will ensure no further payments will come from your Paypal account.

cancel 5

The Box

Inside the Box

The box is split into two compartments; one for refrigerated products (meat, fish, etc.) and the other for items not needing cooling. The refrigerated section comes with 2 reusable ice packs and is insulated with a recyclable hessian material similar to what you would use in a worm farm. The entire box remained cool despite any heat from the outside and the ice packs stayed frozen for several hours. For those not available to be at home for delivery, you don’t need to worry about having the box sit outside.

The Contents

The box

  • Vegetables: 2 Red Onions, 4 Potatoes, 2 Garlic, 2 Bags of Rocket, 2 Bags of Spinach, 2 Corn, 6 Sweet Potatoes, 2 Zucchini, 2 Cucumber, 2 Bags of Green Beans
  • Fruit: 2 Apples, 1 Lime, 2 Tomatoes
  • Herbs: 1 Bag of Coriander, 1 Bag of Mint
  • Meat & Fish: 2 Valencia Free Range Pork Schnitzels, 2 Salmon, 2 Rump Steaks, 2 Lilydale Thigh Fillet Packs, 2 Lilydale Chicken Breast Packs
  • Other: 2 Cajun Spice Blend Packets, 2 Panko Bread Crumbs Bags, 2 Bags of Jasmine Rice, 2 Small Tubs of Moo Greek Style Yoghurt, 2 Pots of Pesto, 2 Parmesan, 2 Pita Bread Pockets Packs

Recipe vs. Reality

Here’s the recipes that were included vs how they came out in reality.


Crunchy Pork Schnitzel with Red Apple & Parmesan Salad


Recipe

Pork Recipe

Reality

Pork


Jerk Beef & Charred Corn Salad with Lime & Sweet Potato


Recipe
Jerk Beef

Reality

 Beef


Chicken Souvlaki with Minted Yoghurt Sauce


Recipe

Chicken Souvlaki Recipe

Reality

Chicken Souvlaki


Garlic Chicken with Green Beans and Jasmine Rice


Recipe

Garlic Chicken Recipe

Reality

Garlic Chicken


Baked Salmon with Pesto Potato Salad


Recipe

Salmon Recipe

Reality

Salmon Recipe

They all look pretty close to their pictures and cooking was dead simple especially when you have all of the ingredients measured and ready.

Value

Quantity Item Total Weight Woolworths Coles Avg. Price
2 Red Onion 342g $1.37 $1.37 $1.37
4 Potatoes 860g $3.87 $3.87 $3.87
1 Lime $0.79 $1.00 $0.90
2 Apples 286g $1.29 $1.57 $1.43
2 Garlic 92g $2.16 $2.76 $2.46
2 Cajun Spice Blend $2.00 $2.64 $2.32
2 Panko Bread Crumbs 2 Cups $2.18 $2.40 $2.29
2 Jasmine Rice 2 Cups $2.29 $2.95 $2.62
1 Coridander $3.00 $2.98 $2.99
1 Mint $3.00 $2.98 $2.99
2 Rocket 216g $4.00 $3.67 $3.83
2 Spinach 306g $8.00 $4.89 $6.44
2 Corn 452g $2.20 $2.40 $2.30
2 Tomatoes 256g $1.20 $1.51 $1.36
Sweet Potato 800g $4.00 $4.00 $4.00
2 Zuchini 220g $2.68 $1.08 $1.88
2 Cucumber 250g $4.00 $4.00 $4.00
2 Moo Greek Style Yoghurt 200g $2.19 $2.52 $2.36
2 Pesto 100g $3.00 $1.95 $2.48
2 Valencia Free Range Pork Schnitzel 640g $6.91 $19.20 $13.06
2 Salmon 726g $17.42 $28.00 $22.71
2 Rump Steak 568g $12.21 $12.21 $12.21
2 Parmesan 100g $3.30 $3.29 $3.30
2 Lilydale Thigh Fillet 638g $6.38 $6.38 $6.38
2 Lilydale Chicken Breast 650g $5.20 $5.85 $5.53
2 Green Beans 600g $2.94 $3.54 $3.24
2 Pita Bread Pockets 228g $3.79 $1.99 $2.89
 TOTAL $111.37 $131.00 $121.18

So just walking (or shopping online) into the supermarket and grabbing these ingredients would have cost you $121.18. That’s not factoring in specials or shopping at cheaper places such as Aldi or a market. That is an extra $68.32 you are paying on a weekly basis ($189.50) just to use HelloFresh. That’s a hefty premium to pay for convenience.

Just Not Worth It

The big pros of HelloFresh are having meals delivered automatically. The meals are healthy and portioned out which is something ordering cheap Dominos or supermarket freezer meals can’t do well. The cons are you still have to cook the meals and you can’t select what you are eating for the week. Don’t like pork? You don’t have an option unless you pick the vegetarian pack which means you’ll lose out on chicken, meat or fish dishes for the week.

If you want a similar service at a fraction of the price, both major supermarkets allow you to shop online based on recipes. Woolworths has loads of recipes on their site which when selected can add all the ingredients to your cart. As an example, Pork Schnitzel & Crispy Slaw is fairly close to HelloFresh’s pork recipe. Pick out 5 recipes for delivery and you have a cheaper and more customisable version of HelloFresh with a similar amount of effort. Save the $68/week and skip HelloFresh.

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