Hello Fresh or Hello, Savings?

The times, they are a-changin’. 

Supermarket shopping, menu planning and cooking from scratch are out.  Meal boxes, delivered to your door, are in.

No longer aimed solely for weight-loss, brands such as Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon, and YouFoodz have swept Australia off it’s feet.   Giving time-poor people more freedom and changing our cooking and eating habits.

There’s a range of options, from ingredient boxes where fresh market produce is delivered to your door, with recipes that you cook, to pre-prepared meals that are already cooked and only require re-heating.

Touted as easy, convenient food with a fresh twist, meal delivery services have blown up the marketplace.   But, what is the true cost of convenience??

Leading consumer advocacy group, Choice, put the most popular meal delivery services to the test.  Comparing the costs of both prepared meals and food boxes to cooking from scratch and shopping for produce.

In terms of ready-to-eat pre-prepared meals, there are much cheaper options awaiting in the frozen section of your local supermarket.  With delivered meal box services selling lasagne for $9.95 and Woolworths offering it for $3.50.

Ingredient boxes are a little trickier to unpack when it comes to cost-effectiveness. By comparison, Choice found there was very little price difference between the cost of buying the ingredients in a food box, like Hello Fresh, compared to buying the same or similar from the supermarket. But, when you look at it more closely, if you do a weekly shop instead of a delivered food box, you’re more likely to access specials and buy larger quantities with better value for money.

The results are in – it’s cheaper to shop for produce and cook food from your cupboards, than relying on food deliveries.

While food box services are undoubtedly more accessible now than ever before, you’re still paying for them to devise the recipes, cook the meals or prepare the boxes, packaging and delivery.

We could tell you to skip the pre-made meals and food boxes and get to the supermarket, grab those specials and go directly to the kitchen to start your weekly meal prep.

We could tell you how much you could save when shopping and cooking for yourself vs. signing up for food delivery services and how that will grow over the years.

Or, we could tell you listed companies Marley Spoon and Hello Fresh are the biggest players in the $600 million meal kit/food box delivery market, which in Australia makes up $1.8 billion of sales in online grocery shopping (read more here).

This time though, we’re going to share a few yummy recipes to feed your family on a budget.

Salivate over this prawn and spinach angel hair pasta with prawn oil,

tuck into this hearty chorizo carbonara

or enjoy easy entertaining with these yummy thai-style chicken wings, all for under $15 per meal.

Contact Us for recipes. Or, financial advice!