HelloFresh quality gone massively downhill?

[devnull]

This isn't meant to be a rant or a need for echo chamber reposes, but it would be interesting to see other people's experiences.

I've cancelled my HelloFresh subscription after nearly a year or so of constant use. In that time, I've found it went from a pretty good value for money service, down to basically taking the piss with ingredients. I hate making meal plans, so this was pretty good to just select what you want, have it turn up and you just pick up a recipe card and get cooking. Especially when you have a newborn, the last thing you want to do is go out for a big shop to make 5 different meals a week.

In the last 6 months or so (yes, I know we are in the midst of a pandemic!) the box quality has gone down hill massively. Guaranteed every week to have at least something missing, whether it's just a spice pot or a sachet of something. Or, some of the produce haven't been fit for purpose - e.g. wedges with a meal and you'e supplied with a golfball sized single potato, a carrot for a coleslaw smaller than my thumb, or just manky veg from the outset - bag of rotten spinach, brown and crispy spring onions etc.

I've had 2 instances of missing meat from the delivery, one entire meal missing from last weeks box, and in one instance the the meat for all of the relevant meals was missing from the cool pack.

Now, in all instances I've contacted HF and they do credit your your account no quibbles - in the instance of the missing meat I had nigh on the whole week refunded. But they rattle off the same 'sorry about your experience, we will feed this back to our team to find out what happened etc etc'.

So, I've cancelled all the deliveries and gone back to just doing my meal planning again. FYI I did also use Gousto for a while, but the pictures of their food almost always looked better than the real deal and the portion sizes were tiny.

EDIT: Mods sorry, not sure why I posted this in HG&DIY.

Edited by devnull on Monday 13th July 11:14

[ReallyReallyGood]

Have used them for one or two weeks during pandemic, using the various discounts they throw about.

It's ok value with the discounts, no way I'd do it without. The wife keeps a copy of the recipe cards we liked and just cooks it herself now.

[TimmyMallett]

I used them once and had mouldy herbs that had spread across the box. Fresh it was not. It looked like one of those lime lapse clips of when mould eats a fruitbowl.

[PanicBuyingBogRoll]

We've had similar issues.
Entire meals missing.
Multiple instances of chicken that has gone off. Usually the thighs. I noticed they have changed their meat suppliers, which has coincided with the quality going down.
Wrong meat for meals. (not really a problem)
Comically tiny veg.
We even had one box with an extra meal in it.
But they have improved again recently. But not to the standard they were before.
The standard of packing is still poor.

Tried Gusto for a while. I actually thought their ingredients were better quality. However the portion sizes were tiny.

I think we will probably stop using them now everything is easily available in supermarkets again. We've only really carried on as the kids like to choose the meals, and they eat stuff they would never have eaten if they hadn't.
My daughter also like cooking the meals. And it's easy for her to follow.

[xjay1337]

We had a week or two on trial. I thought they were a little bit stingy with the potatoes for Wedges/Chips but they ended up being OK when actually prepared and cooked.

I thought the veg we had was pretty fresh and certainly at the same level I'd get buying it from the shop and using it within a couple of days.

Wouldn't (and aren't) using it long term because of the cost per meal is ridiculous.

[Shappers24]

Similar story here. I’ve cancelled them as I was getting rotten herbs and vegetables, and lots of key ingredients missing.

The last straw was the rancid gone off chicken they sent out. Nope...

Switched over to Gousto and didn’t think the meals were as good as HelloFresh. So I’ve stopped that as well.

[Diplomatico]

I love Gousto. Have been using them constantly for around 2 years. I’m surprised about the comments around portion size. That’s the reason I didn’t like hello fresh. They would send you a whole pack of pasta rather than the exact amount needed for the meal. Then you would have ingredients left over. Which is pretty pointless when you are using the service week in week out as it never gets eaten. Steer clear of the gousto 10 min meals as the portion sizes on those are pretty small. Other than that I am a happy customer.

[Slagathore]

Unrelated to HeloFresh, but I've thrown away a lot of funky smelling chicken that we've had delivered.

Not sure what is causing it, I just assumed something in the chain is getting held up or it's being incorrectly stored.

Or the deliveries are at such capacity and the vans don't keep it cold enough, they're sat in the van all day?

[anonymous-user]

Yes. Something changed. Perhaps changes in the supply chain?

Or problems scaling up with COVID?

Or maybe they are turning the screws on margins. It's common in 'normal' food delivery A new place or service will open, use really good quality ingredients, perhaps not making much profit, until a reputation and volume is built up, then the service is downgraded.

Either way, they've lost us.

[pmanson]

I've not tried them but used Mindful Chef a couple of times (pre_Covid) and was really impressed.

[FunkyNige]

Diplomatico said:

I love Gousto. Have been using them constantly for around 2 years. I’m surprised about the comments around portion size. That’s the reason I didn’t like hello fresh. They would send you a whole pack of pasta rather than the exact amount needed for the meal. Then you would have ingredients left over. Which is pretty pointless when you are using the service week in week out as it never gets eaten. Steer clear of the gousto 10 min meals as the portion sizes on those are pretty small. Other than that I am a happy customer.

We've had Gousto quite a few times and agree with the portion sizes - we were worried when we first started that they would be microwave meal size portions they are perfectly fine for the two of us, I think the only time we've been disappointed is making chips from a tiny potato, but then it was a small potato each so we just needed a yogurt for dessert.

All our meals are veggie though so maybe that makes a difference.

[595Heaven]

We reduced our HelloFesh plan from 4 meals per week down to three, and have now paused deliveries for a couple of months. We were finding the recipes were becoming a bit 'same-y' and were finding it difficult to pick options every week.

The quality and size of the veg can definitely be a bit dodgy, and it's not fresh on the day of the delivery, let alone by the end of the week.

Considering it all comes from a big warehouse next to Prodrive on the M40 at Banbury, and we live a few minutes away, it's not great.

We may start again, or try Gousto in the autumn

[dazwalsh]

That's a shame, was about to try hello fresh but think I will give it a miss.

We had simply cook subscription for a while, but have exhausted all the recipes now, they are great for quick meals although the downside is you have to fetch the fresh ingredients.

[48k]

FunkyNige said:

Diplomatico said:

I love Gousto. Have been using them constantly for around 2 years. I’m surprised about the comments around portion size. That’s the reason I didn’t like hello fresh. They would send you a whole pack of pasta rather than the exact amount needed for the meal. Then you would have ingredients left over. Which is pretty pointless when you are using the service week in week out as it never gets eaten. Steer clear of the gousto 10 min meals as the portion sizes on those are pretty small. Other than that I am a happy customer.

We've had Gousto quite a few times and agree with the portion sizes - we were worried when we first started that they would be microwave meal size portions they are perfectly fine for the two of us, I think the only time we've been disappointed is making chips from a tiny potato, but then it was a small potato each so we just needed a yogurt for dessert.

All our meals are veggie though so maybe that makes a difference.

Echo the above re Gousto - portion sizes are huge. We (2 of us) had their lasagne last night, got it again tonight.

[piecost76]

I have used Gousto now for about 6 months - 4 meals per week!

HUGE fan. I'm a greedy b@stard and there is plenty for a family of 4 & then for less that £3/portion!

Any issues I have had (4 in total) have been swiftly refunded & I have a plentiful supply of spare spices for when the odd issue does arise.

They even said during the depths of the supply crisis that they were reducing the range of their meals - fair enough but we have not been adversely affected.

Now I would say they are back up to speed. The meals are based heavily or carbs - rice/pasta/potato with mainly chicken & minced meat but what do you expect for under £3 per portion - fillet steak?

For a family of 4 they are spot on. Twice we have cancelled a box for a week due to holidays or wanting to empty the freezer but never for service related issues. Only gripe is the referral bonus has gone down to £10 as opposed to £15 but I'm sure it will go back up!

[GT03ROB]

Those of you that use these services, what do you see as the advantages? It strikes me as being neither fish nor fowl. It's not a ready meal type option, & you can get home delivery from all of the supermarkets anyway. Unless you live solely on these meals you still have to shop elsewhere. They don't seem especially cheap either.

[iphonedyou]

GT03ROB said:

Those of you that use these services, what do you see as the advantages? It strikes me as being neither fish nor fowl. It's not a ready meal type option, & you can get home delivery from all of the supermarkets anyway. Unless you live solely on these meals you still have to shop elsewhere. They don't seem especially cheap either.

Admittedly I don't use them - but the advantage they're marketed on is that they save you choosing the ingredients, as well as shopping for them. Which home delivery doesn't.

They're not generally marketed on cost, as they're obviously a more expensive option than selecting and buying your own ingredients.

[devnull]

GT03ROB said:

Those of you that use these services, what do you see as the advantages? It strikes me as being neither fish nor fowl. It's not a ready meal type option, & you can get home delivery from all of the supermarkets anyway. Unless you live solely on these meals you still have to shop elsewhere. They don't seem especially cheap either.

I am the cook of the house, I hate doing meal plans. I do plenty of batch cooking, but there's only so much spagbol / lasagne / curry you can eat from the freezer.

HelloFresh / Gousto was a brainless way of cooking a balanced flavourful meal in a short amount of time. It came into its own when we had a newborn, I couldn't remember my name, let alone do a meal plan for a couple of months - just grab a bag from the box and cook it.

[Silverage]

We’ve had a few Hello Freshes over the last couple of months, but only when they send vouchers. It’s poor value at full price and in my opinion borderline even at 40% off.

Only had one bad ingredient sent (some carrots that had gone spongy) and never any missing ones. As someone said above, I keep the recipe cards for any that we particularly like and I buy the ingredients myself now.

[48k]

GT03ROB said:

Those of you that use these services, what do you see as the advantages? It strikes me as being neither fish nor fowl. It's not a ready meal type option, & you can get home delivery from all of the supermarkets anyway. Unless you live solely on these meals you still have to shop elsewhere. They don't seem especially cheap either.

For us we enjoyed a few benefits:
- forced us to think ahead about meals / meal planning
- tried stuff that we wouldn't normally try
- eliminated food wastage
- didn't have to be home to accept the delivery
- it's nice having everything pre-measured and ready to go, no faffing about
- we've built up a binder of meal recipes we know we like

We did 4 meals a week, delivered on a Monday which was enough for us, supplemented by leftovers due to the large portion sizes, a night out at the pub or a takeaway, Sunday roast etc.