Let’s get detailed costs and compare!
By Hiro Noda
There’s nothing better than finishing your busy day with delicious homemade meals. You’ve probably heard from a friend or seen on TV how you can enjoy home cooking with meal box delivery services such as HelloFresh, Marley Spoon and Dinnerly. These services deliver fresh seasonal ingredients directly to your door with delicious recipes, so that you don’t have to think about what to cook or go to grocery shopping.
The question is, how much do they cost? In this post we will cover:
- How Much HelloFresh Meals Cost
- Price Comparison with Other Services
- Pros & Cons
- Unboxing HelloFresh
- My Cooking Review
- Promo Code
How much is HelloFresh Australia?
Without getting our discount, HelloFresh will cost on average between $9.50 – $11.66 per serving. Below is breakdown of HelloFresh Meal Box options and their cost.
Price Comparison
So where does HelloFresh stand against its competitors? As per price comparison table below, HelloFresh cost is very similar to its main competitor, Marley Spoon. Compared to budget service provider such as Dinnerly, the cost is significantly higher for HelloFresh and Marley Spoon. This is because these two services are high end provider that provides customers with higher quality meals and options. You will see in our review below why HelloFresh worth it.
The cost for Two People Box (couple) is consistent across the high end providers. If you compare to Australia based company such as Thomas Farms Kitchen, you will be paying $69.90 for 2 People x 3 Meals, which is almost the same price as HelloFresh (5 cents difference).
In terms of cost for family sized meals, it is true that Marley Spoon offers approx. $10 cheaper meal boxes. The key advantage of HelloFresh is that it offers up to 5 meals per week and offers family friendly meal boxes.
Pros
1. Perfect for family with kids
One thing that makes HelloFresh stand out is that they offer Family Plan, where you get to choose meals that are delicious with twists on classic dishes. I ordered Mexican Smokey Fish Tacos, which was packed with flavour, especially enjoyed their smokey aioli sauce! HelloFresh’s easy-to-follow recipes will get the whole family excited for dinner time – and maybe even helping with the cooking.
2. Say goodbye to supermarket ques and eating out all the time
People working full time have claimed that they struggle to think about what to cook every night, resulting in stopping at the supermarket on the way home or eat out a lot. In fact, Aussies spend average of 3.3 days per year in the grocery store, selecting ingredients. Think about the 3.3. days you will be saving with Hello Fresh.
3. It only takes 30 min to cook – it’s true!
Unlike other meal box services, HelloFresh on average does in fact only take 30 minutes to cook. My tacos dish indeed only took 30min to prep and cook. This is also testified by other review sites such as Popdust. But remember, this doesn’t include your clean up time!
4. It’s about your lifestyle – time is money
Number of people thought meals were a bit expensive. It’s true that meal box services are not for everyone, but you need to look at the benefits. Saving time by not going to grocery stores and planning what to cook every night is a priceless benefit. Don’t just think about how much the actual meal costs (average of $9.50 per meal), but the time and convenience you are also getting. Remember, time is money!
Cons
1. Customer Service is not the best
While I have not had any personal issues with HelloFresh, search on web indicates that their customer service is not the best. Number of people forgot to cancel their soft-subscription on timely manner, where people ended up receiving the box. If you are going to cancel your soft-subscription, be sure to check out their FAQ and cancel before the cut-off date and take screen shot as your evidence of cancellation on time.
Communication and response rate also appears not to be their best compared to other meal box services (customer service is only open until 4pm). Just like any other call centres, we all have that love and hate relationships with customer services!
2. Occasional delivery blips
Just like any other meal delivery service, HelloFresh is no exemption to occasional delivery mistakes. People claimed they either were missing an ingredient or didn’t receive their meal box. Majority of people who have contacted HelloFresh received refund in a form of store credit or discount on the next order. It’s important to know that majority of meal box services (e.g. Marley Spoon) don’t do cash back, but refunds via store credit for customers to use on their next order.
3. Many plastic wrappings and ice packs – think about the environment
To keep the ingredients nice and fresh, a lot of plastic wrappings and ice packs are used for weekly meal box. They are all reusable, but they do stack up quickly and not environmentally friendly. With third party logistics partner, they do not provide a collection service for ice packs and boxes.
Unboxing HelloFresh Australia
Now that you know the pros and cons, you are wondering about the quality of ingredients. Alright, let me show you inside the box and my thoughts about them!
Inside the box, ingredients are all nicely packed & sorted! Each meal is packed separately into brown back and colour coded with recipe cards, so you know which one is which. You can see that there are many marketing materials, they are nice but I thought it was too much printing materials.
You will receive easy-to-follow recipe card, I’m all ready to cook! I was quite pleased with the packaging, where ingredients are all sorted as per recipe, which makes it easy to store in your fridge. The brown recyclable bags are not very strong, so it will break easy if it gets wet from the ice-pack.
The best part about HelloFresh is their freshness of the ingredients and awesome sauces you get to try. The ingredients I received were qualities you expect from local fresh market stores. No ingredients were missing from my box as well, which is great news.
My Cooking Review of HelloFresh Australia
Next, I’m going to answer your most important question… “is it tasty?” Drum roll please… I’m gonna show you Mexican Smokey Fish Tacos I cooked. Also, just a quick but important reminder that you will need to have essential pantry items such as flours and cooking oils for any meal box services (these are always mentioned in your recipe card). Pull up next to a beach in Mexico and you’ll undoubtedly smell the delicious aromas of fish tacos. This homemade version might be missing the ocean breeze, but still maintains the spicy, zingy and fresh flavours of the original creation.
Cooking Time
25 min
Cooking Level
1 (easy)
Nutrition per serving
Energy (kJ) 2790 kJ, Fat 28.8 g, Protein 39.3 g, Carbohydrate 57.8 g.
Allergens
Fish, Gluten and Fish
Ingredients (what you will be getting)
Prep the fish by cutting them into small-medium sizes and season with Mexican Fiesta spice blend… you can almost smell the beautiful spice from the pic! Combine the vinegar, a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the shredded red cabbage and grated carrot. Boombayah! Here’s our HelloFresh’s Mexican Smokey Fish Tacos!
I must say that cooking process was really simple to follow. All you had to do was prep the veggies, marinate the fish, cook them and plate it all together! What I enjoyed most about cooking HelloFresh was trying out different spices and sauces. The smokey aioli was especially tasty and kids would love it. The meal looked just like the recipe card and tasted like I was eating at local restaurant.
Exclusive Promo Code For HelloFresh Australia
Now that you are willing to give HelloFresh a go, check out meal box options and costs below. Let’s order it through our site using the exclusive coupon below!
FEEVIE40 (Save 40% off your first HelloFresh box with BestMeals)
This Week’s Recipe From HelloFresh Australia
Let’s find out exactly what meals HelloFresh is offering this week! Simply click on the image below!
Other Promo Codes
If you are looking for something else, then we strongly recommend you check out our meal service reviews. If cost is most important to you, then check our Dinnerly (most affordable meal box). For those who loves food and wants highest quality, then I would strongly recommend Marley Spoon.
If you are looking for other exclusive discounts check our exclusive promotion codes:
> Dinnerly – CD3BESTMEALS5NF (Exclusive to Bestmeals, $15 off the first box and $15 off the second box)
> Marley Spoon – CM3BESTMEALS5SF ($35 off the first box – Exclusive to Bestmeals)
