Subscription meals: overpriced?

glider3560

All my colleagues and friends are raving about these subscription meal by post services (e.g. Hello Fresh and Gusto). I'm apparently their target market (mid-20s working "professional") but can't see the purpose or value of these boxes. My colleagues seem to think they are "good value" as "you don't waste anything".

Looking at Hello Fresh, 3 meals for 2 people cost £39. So that is £6.50 per portion, or £13 for the two of you.

Looking at this week's menus, I see they have a small gammon meal. Let's compare this to the supermarkets:
New Potatoes x1 pack - 1kg 69p at Tesco
Red Onion x1 - ~16p at Tesco
Leek x2 - ~80p at Tesco
Organic Lentils x1 Tin - £1 per bag at Tesco
Gammon Steaks x2 (no size specified) - 250g (125g x2) for 79p at Aldi
Wholegrain Mustard 1 tsp - 55p for a whole jar at Tesco

With my Tesco+Aldi combo, that would cost £3.99. Compare to £13 at Hello Fresh.

If you were to buy 3 of these meals every week, in a year, as a couple you would spend £2028. Compare that to £622.44 for my supermarket price.

After looking at these figures, I can see why my colleagues don't seem to have any savings, nor the ability to move out of a student-style houseshare, despite being in their late 30s. They seem to cater for those who cannot plan ahead.

Anyone else got any opinions of this? Maybe I'm just tight?

gayleygoo

They are certainly very costly, not a chance I'd pay that! The extra cost is paying someone else to plan meals, shop, and put ingredients together and have it delivered to your house. Come to think of it, you could offer that service to your friends and make money just doing your weekly shop!

I think the target market for that kind of thing is people who don't know much about cooking or planning food or have very little time to shop. Even if they do go to the supermarket they probably fill their trolleys with tons of stuff without much thought, and that's where the waste comes from.

I noticed on Pinterest that there are lots of posts on meal planning for a week, how to put all the meals together on one day etc. Maybe you could point those out to your friends? Perhaps they just value their time more than their money though.

suki1964

Factor in the cooking cost and the hourly rate you are worth

However ........

I can see why busy city types would buy them. Possibly not as much guilt about buying those then buying a weeks shopping, then throwing it away at the end of the week because too knackered to cook and a take away is the easy option

When I was cash rich and time poor, our food bills were sky high. I shopped in marks and waitrose and the takeaway. Expensive but quick food.

Now I have the time I cook from scratch, which as you say is cheaper.... But if I added the cost of my commercial worth to it, perhaps I'd just break even with the ready meals

glider3560

suki1964 wrote: »

Factor in the cooking cost and the hourly rate you are worth

Thing is ... these delivery meals still need to be cooked! You literally just get the raw ingridients (albeit somwhat prepared) and a recipe card.

phizzimum

When I first heard about these services I couldn't believe anyone would sign up. But I guess it depends on what people were eating before - if someone was living on takeaways and meals out they would save money. It's seems a shame to me as meal planning isn't hard once you get into it but many lack confidence

prowla

Well, as with any product, comparing the raw materials isn't the whole story.

In this case it's a lifestyle thing, and that is where the "value added" (ie. extra cost) comes in.

I can't see me paying for such a service, but I guess some people will.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I had one of these call on my doorstep and quite persistently give me the hard sell ("your neighbours down the road have signed up!!!"- is this supposed to make me want to be like them?). Once I'd managed to extract a figure from her, it would have been £25 a week. I spend about that on my weekly shop, which includes stuff for breakfast and packed lunches plus household stuff. So I'd still have to go shopping for those bits, and I'd be spending more and having no choice for my dinner.

I have a friend who is quite lazy and unimaginative with cooking and she seems to think it's good value though.

cyantist

Aldi is really cheap for gammon but if you try to buy something similar from tesco it's more like £4 than 79p. For the people contemplating this type of subscription, it's unlikely they'd bother going to two separate supermarkets and there still aren't that many Aldis compared to other supermarkets. Our nearest one is over 10 miles away.

If you can't easily get to a decent supermarket (and are stuck buying most of your things from express or local type stores) then the cost of the boxes in comparison aren't as high.

I don't understand how people can think they're particularly good value, but if it means you don't have to go to the supermarket as often it could possibly save money if you're the sort of person who picks up a lot of extras you don't really need.

Hermia

I did see an international food one that I would have tried if I had had the money. From what I remember each box had dishes from a different country. As someone who does get put off trying foreign recipes because it would mean buying new spices, oils and other speciality ingredients (and maybe even having trouble tracking down those ingredients) I did think it sounded a nice idea.

VfM4meplse

glider3560 wrote: »

Anyone else got any opinions of this? Maybe I'm just tight?

Or perhaps you have more sense than cash?

suki1964 wrote: »

I can see why busy city types would buy them. Possibly not as much guilt about buying those then buying a weeks shopping, then throwing it away at the end of the week because too knackered to cook and a take away is the easy option

When I was cash rich and time poor, our food bills were sky high. I shopped in marks and waitrose and the takeaway. Expensive but quick food.

That's what i don't get...surely the good supermarkets dominate the market with healthy and high quality ready meals, at a better price?

I think these subscriber ready meals are attractive to people that work long hours, and don't want to rush out to the supermarket after work to buy what's left on the shelf rather than what they fancy eating. Its no big deal to treat yourself to something every day, I just happen to think this is an expensive way of doing it...but hey, if it makes the economy tick...?!

Hermia

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I think these subscriber ready meals are attractive to people that work long hours, and don't want to rush out to the supermarket after work to buy what's left on the shelf rather than what they fancy eating. Its no big deal to treat yourself to something every day, I just happen to think this is an expensive way of doing it...but hey, if it makes the economy tick...?!

From what I can tell from talking to friends who have used them is that it is more about time poor people who don't cook, but would love to. They want to start cooking, but getting around to making a list of ingredients and buying them is what defeats them. Plus they don't necessarily have a stock of store cupboard ingredients. So this is an easy way for them to cook from scratch.