Are meal kit boxes worth it? Our senior food writer put HelloFresh to the test

If you thought meal kit boxes, packed with pre-weighed and ready-to-cook ingredients delivered to your doorstep, were a relic of the pandemic, think again. HelloFresh, a global operator in this market, has 8.1 million regular customers, and last autumn it set up (virtual) shop in Dublin, delivering the makings of dinner, down to dinky little individual sachets of spice and pouches of sauce, to addresses nationwide. You may have found it hard to avoid the company’s blanket marketing across social media and through corporate partnerships. It is not alone in the Irish market either, with Eatstro and DropChef offering a similar service.

HelloFresh is a subscription-based business model. Customers sign up online for a meal plan based on their requirements and preferences, and each week select the meals they want to cook, from a choice of 16 options. The boxes are delivered by courier, from the company’s distribution centre in Co Dublin, on a designated day chosen by the customer. The weekly subscription auto-renews, until cancelled or paused.

The service is widely promoted on social media, through HelloFresh’s own advertising, and through a chain of partners, brand ambassadors and influencers. Influencers are actively recruited on the HelloFresh website and earn a fee for each order placed using their “unique discount code”. The Irish TV presenter and podcaster Vogue Williams was an ambassador for the brand in the UK, and in Ireland Rosanna Davidson and Holly Carpenter have been associated with the company.

Founded in Berlin in 2011, the company is active in 14 countries in Europe, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US (which accounts for approximately 59 per cent of its business). Philip Doran, chief executive of HelloFresh Ireland, won’t reveal how many customers the company has here, but says: “We’ve been very pleased with the opening of HelloFresh in the Irish market. While we can’t share specific numbers, we are very excited about the potential growth in Ireland. We have ambitious plans and want to grow HelloFresh to be a genuine alternative for all Irish families at dinner time.”

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At a cost of €73 for three meals, each serving four people, it is an option that not all Irish families can afford. But for some, the convenience factor is attractive, and there may be savings to be made around food waste avoidance. “HelloFresh was attracted to set up in Ireland because it is an exciting market for us and we believe the HelloFresh model is a great fit for Irish consumers who enjoy cooking high-quality, exciting meals but are often short on time,” Doran says.

“The typical HelloFresh subscriber profile includes families and dual-income households, with the primary target demographic being people aged 25-65 with disposable income who cook for their families or partners. The subscriber profile may vary slightly from country to country, but the core target audience remains consistent.”

What goes on the menu each week in Ireland is down to Hannah Duxbury, a Ballymaloe Cookery School graduate (class of 2019), who moved to Dublin from South Africa 12 months ago to take up the title of Irish Head of Culinary. Duxbury and her team, based in Dublin 2, develop and test the recipes that are offered to subscribers each week. “My role is to structure the menu, make sure that what we’re offering customers varies each week, that there’s a multitude of cuisines and dish types and flavours, trying to appeal to as many customers as possible.”

The recipes are developed specifically for each of HelloFresh’s global markets, and ingredients are sourced locally, in the main. “We make an effort to get really top quality ingredients; our chorizo we get from Spain because that’s the best place to get it from. But we try to source locally as much as possible ... all our fresh produce comes from Irish suppliers,” Duxbury says.

Apart from our acknowledged appreciation of chorizo, what else is popular with Irish customers? “I know they really love chicken,” Duxbury says, and spicy dishes are popular too. “Put curry on the menu and it does really, really well.” She thinks that recipes that are a bit unusual, or out of the ordinary, appeal to Irish customers. “I think there’s a lot of curiosity, a chance to be a little bit adventurous and use HelloFresh as an opportunity to teach yourself to cook.”

I know how to cook most things, but like many people, I regard the weekly shop as a chore. I could also do with a fresh dose of inspiration when it comes to putting quick, hassle-free midweek dinners on the table. So, would HelloFresh be a good choice for me? I ordered a box and put it to the test.

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The ordering process

Tempted by the discount deals that have been popping up in my social media feeds, I sign up on the HelloFresh website for a box containing three meals for two, with a €25 discount on the first delivery and smaller discounts on a further two, after which the normal price of €41, plus €5.99 delivery, will apply. In doing so, I have activated a subscription that will continue to deliver a box at the same time every week, until I cancel. If I forget to select my meals, HelloFresh will choose them for me.

I pay with a single-use online Revolut card, in case the subscription proves difficult to get out of, but I notice the next day that the payment, though approved by Revolut, has not been accepted by HelloFresh. A normal credit card, which the company can continue to drawn money from until I cancel my sub, works fine.

I choose the three-meals-for-two-people option and go for the Classic plan from a selection that also includes Family, Quick Cook, Veggie, Calorie Smart, Pescatarian and Flexitarian. But before I can start picking my meals, I must “Get Started”, which means signing up for the service and submitting my credit card details; only then do I see the recipes and get to pick next week’s dinners.

Rogan Josh style beef with chilli and crispy potatoes; sugar snap stir-fried pork with fluffy rice and fried peppers, and chicken and leek pot pie with carrots and crispy potato topping, make it into my basket. I select Tuesday for delivery, and as the courier delivery window is from 8am to 8pm, I cross my fingers and hope for an early slot.

The delivery

Returning late on Monday night from a Bank Holiday weekend trip away, I feel smug when I remember that dinners for the next three nights are on their way to me. The HelloFresh box duly arrives midmorning and it’s clear from the outset that the packaging has been designed with sustainability in mind. The box and the recipe cards are 100 per cent recyclable, the cool bag that keeps the contents fresh has notes on how to recycle it, and the ice packs, while not suitable for recycling, can be reused.

Inside, there are three numbered brown paper bags, each containing the ingredients for a meal. The meat and dairy products are in another bag, with ice packs, and it is reassuring to see labels from some premium Irish suppliers, including Andarl Farm pork, and Glenilen creme fraiche and yoghurt. However the ice pack has punctured the creme fraiche tub, and it is a bit of a mess (I am later told that more sturdy packaging is being designed to avoid this issue). The beef mince and diced chicken breast are labelled 100 per cent Irish.

Tuesday’s dinner

The recipe cards are big, bright, and sturdy, and have step-by-step instructions and photos, as well as nutritional information and calorie counts. The one for the sugar snap stir-fried pork says Eat Me First, so I do as I am told. There are a couple of sugar snaps that have seen better days in the bag, so I toss those, but the ingredients seem plentiful, so I don’t miss the few soggy ones that haven’t survived the journey from Egypt.

With the long grain rice on to cook, the sugar snap peas and red pepper sliced, and the single clove of garlic crushed, it’s time to start stir-frying. The instructions tell me to stir fry the red pepper strips first, until “just soft”, then add the pork mince to the pan. But I veer off-piste and the pork hits the pan first to get a quick browning before adding the peppers (I want them to retain some bite). The peas and garlic and the two sachets of teriyaki sauce are next, and dinner is ready in the time it takes the rice to cook.

It is fast and simple to prepare, and it is somehow more tasty than I imagined it would be. The good quality teriyaki sauce is key. The portions are generous. But I would usually have most of the ingredients to cook this already in my cupboard and fridge, apart from the pork, so do I need a meal kit to make it?

Wednesday’s dinner

I like that the rogan josh style beef (mince) is to be served with potato rather than rice, again. There are more ingredients in the bag this time, 10 rather than six, including a little brown paper sachet of ground turmeric and another of korma paste, which is confusing as the recipe title is rogan josh.

As well as the 250g of beef mince, there is a sizeable carton of lentils to be incorporated in the meal, which is a good sustainable practice, making the animal protein stretch further. With chopped carrots, chilli and passata added to the mix along with the korma paste, it is not an authentic rogan josh, but it is a mildly spiced, family-friendly dinner. The meat and lentil sauce is served with turmeric-coated cubes of roasted potato, with a dollop of Glenilen yoghurt on top. Again, it makes a sizeable meal that two of us struggled to finish.

Thursday’s dinner

It’s chicken pot pie night, and given that I lost a fair bit of my Glenilen creme fraiche in the packaging snafu, I feel free to raid my fridge and larder to compensate, topping the pie with grated cheese as well as the provided potatoes and breadcrumbs, and adding some chicken stock to the filling.

The potatoes for the topping aren’t in great condition – one is green and has to be discarded. Neither is the leek a prime specimen, but it is huge, so I can trim appropriately. Carrots and onions bulk up this dinner in a healthy way, and it’s nice to have the chicken breast already cubed rather than having to do it myself.

This one definitely took me longer than the suggested 40-45 minutes to prepare and cook, largely due to the pie needing more than the suggested 10-15 minutes in my oven. Again, the finished dish was huge, easily enough to serve three or maybe even four.

The verdict

I enjoyed three fairly healthy, fairly tasty, simple-to-prepare meals without having to visit a supermarket, either online or in person, which is a plus. But the bottom line is: would I buy it again? For me the answer is no (I cancelled my sub the next day, without hassle), but I can see how it would appeal to others. The time-poor, the novice cook, and those who are all out of answers for the “What’s for dinner?” chorus, could find something to like.