What is Hello Fresh?
Like many other meal kit delivery services, Hello Fresh ships pre-measured ingredients and recipes for meals you’ve chosen directly to your door once a week. You bring the box in, unpack it, put the food in the fridge, and recycle all the shipping material.
We decided to try it for a month. I was curious about the recipes (we’ve heard good things), but also how it all works, like how the produce looks after shipping, and how they get the meat to stay fresh. It’s very easy to set up an account, and we ordered our first week of meals.
It’s the second week of our two-week Hello Fresh experiment and I’ve received my second big box-o-food. Rick and I both agree this will be our last week. But not because we hated it or think it’s a bad service.
Meal kit delivery services, like Hello Fresh, can be a great option for people who meet any of the following criteria:
- people who eat small portions
- people who like to cook but hate to plan
- people who aren’t concerned with their food budget
- people who don’t eat lots of fresh produce
With that said, here are a few of my observations for the rest of us…
Portion sizes are average, but some of us are not.
After making our first Hello Fresh meal, it was apparent that the beautiful, full plate of food in the bright color recipe photo, was plated on a salad plate… not a dinner plate. This, of course, makes the portions look bigger without having to actually make them bigger. The real portion size test happened when we sat down to eat. Of the four meals we tried last week, there was only one that didn’t end with a still-hungry Rick.
Some portions are bigger than others. The Chicken Schwarma Bowls I made this evening were on the smaller side. The meatballs we made a couple nights ago had larger portion sizes. All of the meals were enough for me, but I’m small-ish. These would be perfect portion sizes for older people as well.
Here’s a photo of Rick rounding out one of the meals with a bowl of Cherrios…
The produce: not so much, and not so fresh.
I’ve gotta say, though there was never anything that was un-useable, most of the produce in the meal kits was really not all that fresh.
So far, the worst has been this sad, shrivled Anaheim pepper. Poor thing.
I did notice that all the herbs (we had fresh cilantro and chives in several dinners) were nice and fresh.
Less expensive than restaurants. More expensive than homemade.
Hello Fresh advertising says it saves money, but I think they must be compared to eating at restaurants. We chose four meals with four servings each (totaling 16 servings per week). At one point, I opted for one of their premier meals and watched our weekly total skyrocket immediately, so I canceled that sucker!
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
$/meal |
$5.55 |
$6.80 |
$8.06 |
$8.38 |
$8.69 |
|
$/week |
$89 |
$109 |
$129 |
$134 |
$139 |
So the first month costs $461, but the cost jumps after that. The second month costs $556. Keep in mind, nearly $40 of that is just in shipping alone! And, that’s only 4 dinners (and lunches since we had some leftovers). You would still have to buy food for the other three days.
Here’s some more math (for those who like such things), courtesy of JD Roth from GetRichSlowly.org, from his Hello Fresh review (his numbers are slightly different than our… I believe this is probably due to shipping, as well as the options to order more expensive meals sometimes):
“HelloFresh costs between $9 and $10 per person per meal. That’s much cheaper than eating in a restaurant, obviously, but it’s more expensive than normal home dining. Or is it? I decided to dig deeper into the numbers…”
“ ‘…what if I were to simply make my own versions of the HelloFresh recipes?’ I wondered. What would my costs be then?’ ”
“Armed with the Sweet-as-Honey Chicken recipe card, I made a trip to the local Wal-Mart. I browsed the aisles, pricing out the individual ingredients.”
“From my calculations, it’d cost me $6.10 to purchase the ingredients needed for the meal. (This counts only the quantities I’d need for that specific meal, not the extra garlic, rice, chicken, etcetera that I’d end up with.) That’s a total of $3.05 per person per meal versus $9.99 per person per meal.”
Packaging — holy landfill, Batman!
If you’ve been following the news regarding recycling this last year or so, you already know much of what we’re recycling is ending up in landfills anyway (only about 10% of plastic is actually recycled).
Below are four photos of the packaging from our first box.
Though food from the store comes with lots of packaging as well, it’s not nearly as much as this. I felt guilty every time I dropped all that plastic in the garbage can.
You still have to go grocery shopping.
Ordering a meal kit service to deliver your food means you don’t have to go grocery shopping, right? Well, not really. You still have to get everything else you need anyway… coffee, milk, eggs, baking supplies, lunch stuff, snacks, cleaning supplies, and all the other things you get at a grocery store each week.
With 10 minutes and a little planning, you could pick up a few extra (fresher) ingredients for dinner while you’re there, and skip the shipping costs.
And, you still need to cook.
Each meal kit was bagged up separately and well organized, and we thought the recipes ranged from okay to really fun.
The instructions were clear, though fairly complicated — It took me at least an hour to complete most of the meals we tried. They aren’t what I’d recommend for someone who has never cooked anything before.
Probably the most difficult part was the timing. Each dinner had multiple things happening at the same time, so there was a bit of juggling happening in order to get everything ready at the same time.
Homemade or processed?
Every meal I’ve made so far has come with multiple packets of processed sauces or seasonings, which are very tasty, but generally have high sugar and salt content, as well as other preservatives and mystery ingredients.
The meal I made this evening was a case in point. This photo shows the ingredients for four servings of Chicken Schwarma Bowls: Two tiny cucumbers, two roma tomatoes, one small lemon, and a couple of shallots were all the produce for four people. There was plenty of the couscous, though, and lots of processed stuff: little pre-packaged hummus’, seasoning packets, hot sauce packets, yogurt packets, and sour cream
packets… that’s a lot of packets and a lot of garbage. Not pictured were the four small chicken breasts. The quality of the meat was good, but they were quite small.
On the positive side, using some processed foods to get some easy wins when you’re learning to cook could be very helpful and encouraging.
The meals are relatively healthy. (From my perspective, they're very healthy; Kim thinks they're only moderately so.)
“Healthy” is… complicated
I love this quote (also from JD Roth). It shows just how subjective food is to different people. If you’re used to eating super healthy, whole-grain everything, no meat, no dairy, mostly organic veggies, then you’re not going to think these meals are “healthy”. BUT, if you’ve been eating burgers and pizza, these meals would be a huge improvement!
We’ve had to dial our diets a few notches toward the healthier end because of health issues, so the Hello Fresh meals, though fairly tasty, were not nearly as healthy as we would have preferred. I chose meals that looked like they had lots of veggies only to find they had far less than they seemed to have in the photos. In addition, after a week of white rice and potatoes (not a complex carb to be seen), lots of butter, and few veggies, I find I’m feeling less energetic than usual.
We wanted to try this for a month, but we’ve both agreed, another week is probably enough. Though, this second week, I’ll be using Hello Fresh ingredients, adding extra veggies, and adjusting the recipes to be more how we like to eat: fewer saturated fats (olive oil instead of butter), and more complex carbs (brown rice and other whole grains instead of white rice).
The methods used (like adding lots of butter) is what restaurants generally do… it’s why everything seems to taste better when you eat out. BUT, it’s also why eating out all the time is not great for your health.
The inevitable race to the bottom.
Like any other commodity service, all the meal kit companies have to find ways to compete with one another — to stand out. And, in our culture, the lowest price and fastest service is king, which means they’re going to have to cut corners. Here’s what I’d expect to see, and have already seen this last week:
Less variety of produce.
I haven’t seen a single leafy, green anything in my box yet… because it would be too hard to keep it fresh during the whole packing and shipping process. Many vegetables are too fragile to withstand this processing. I have seen lots of potatoes and carrots though, and even some of those were on the edge of useable.
Less quantity of produce.
Because the processing is hard on the veggies, it makes sense to limit how much fresh produce is in each meal and box of meals. The meats are going to stay cold on the ice packs and will be fine, but the veggies are more likely to show up looking less fresh — which is disappointing. More wilty veggies equal more people canceling their accounts.
Lower quality of produce.
Though technically still useable, the produce that we’ve seen looks a little beat up. It’s really difficult to keep that produce fresh when you’re storing it in warehouses, then packing it up and shipping it across the country. If you’re cooking the veggies anyway, it might not matter that they’re a little tough looking and bendy, but you wouldn’t want to eat it raw, like in a salad.
Less meat.
My guess is, as the meal-kit market gets even more crowded and competitive, meat portions, which are the most expensive element of each meal, are going to shrink.
More carbs.
Since wholesale food is obviously the biggest cost for meal kit companies, they’ll have to find ways to provide decent meal portions without losing their profits, which means… hello carbs! Rice, couscous, tortillas… more of these inexpensive fillers and fewer veggies and meats will get you full, but don’t expect stronger bones as you age, or more energy throughout the day.
My conclusions?
If you’re eating restaurant food a lot, know how to cook a little, but don’t want to do meal-planning, using a meal kit delivery service could be a good solution. Hello Fresh is less expensive than eating out, and the pre-measured kits take some of the confusion out of cooking homemade meals. The detailed recipe instructions are a good way to learn some food prep skills.
However, you can save a lot more money (and time) by doing some simple meal planning. Planning ahead what you want to cook, then having a detailed shopping list is key to making long-term, healthy eating habits.
Next Steps?…
If you’ve enjoyed this article, and you’re looking for ways to get homemade food on the table consistently, check out my new online class, “How to Plan, Shop & Cook for Life” at Teachable.com.
I’ll show you how to…
- Plan a week’s worth of dinners in HALF AN HOUR
- Make ONE WEEKLY TRIP to the grocery store
- And, SPEND 30-60 MINUTES making each dinner, with just a few spices and easy-to-find ingredients.
Just need the course materials? You’ll find them HERE.
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