With meal kits rising in popularity and the convenience claims of HelloFresh becoming more well known, Sports Editor Adam Schmitz seeks to find out how these meals taste, how convenient it really is and, most importantly, can it fit in a student’s budget?
If you’ve not yet admitted defeat and started paying for Youtube Premium, there’s no doubt that you’ve come across an advertisement for HelloFresh. The heavily advertised German meal kit company has surged in popularity over the past year, with the appeal of convenient home recipes leading to many signing up for the service (or at least a free trial). After hearing about the service I decided to give it a go, with two questions on my mind: is it really as great as they claim, and can the price be justified on a student budget?
HelloFresh’s model is fairly straightforward. The idea is that every week, you select two or three recipes from around twenty five options. The options come under different headers, based on your dietary preferences and categories like ‘Quick-Cook’ and ‘Calorie Smart’. After picking your meals and selecting how many portions of each you’d like, a large brown box shows up at your door the following week with everything you need.
When my first box arrived, I was struck by the fact that there was no doubting their claim of convenience. The box contained a few paper bags — one large bag contained everything that needed to go in the fridge, and the rest were labelled for each dish I selected. Being able to throw one bag in the fridge and the rest in the press to remain unopened until I wanted to cook was an early positive. Underneath the bags were simple, clear recipes on A4 sheets explaining which bag held which meal, which one needed to be prepared first, and how long it would take to cook each dish.
As a Gen-Z college student, the other stand-out positive of HelloFresh was the minimization of food waste. The box really does arrive with exactly what you need. My Chorizo Rigatoni meal came with perfectly sized portions of spices and crème fraîche, so every ingredient was used without any waste afterwards — sure to be a big appeal to any sustainability students out there!
While some recipes, such as the Sweet and Spicy Chicken Burger and Soy and Scallion Pork Udon Noodles, were rich with flavour and new cooking tips that I found useful, other dishes left me wondering why I needed to pay for a recipe. The Creamy Pesto and Bacon Pasta had just seven ingredients and four instructions — one of which was “divide the pesto bacon pasta between your plates.” The simplicity of recipes can be great when you’re in a rush, but some of the meals could be easily replicated for a lower price with a basic cookery website and a Tesco Clubcard.
This brings me to my final question: is HelloFresh worth the cost? Ordering three recipes a week for two people comes at the price of €41 plus a delivery fee of €6. It’s undeniably more expensive than shopping for your own home-cooked meals. However, the first box comes at a good price of just €22 including delivery, with no obligation to ever buy again. Better yet, you can grab a referral code off a friend and pay just the €6 delivery fee to try it out.
The overall takeaway? Well, for starters, it’s definitely worth trying a first box. Should you stick with it after that? If you’re a decent meal prepper and do your weekly shop, then the price is hard to justify. However if you find yourself ordering delivery a few too many times each week, then HelloFresh is a handy way to eat a diverse range of nutritious food, without ever having to walk out the door.