NEW. UK meal kits compared

MSE_Rob_Z

We put five of the major meal box kits in the UK to the taste and price test.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2026/04/meal-box-comparison-hellofresh-vs-gousto-vs-green-chef-vs-mindful-chef-vs-planthood/

jaybeetoo

We used to use Hello Fresh but stopped after they repeatedly delivered boxes with missing ingredients. There’s no point having a food box delivered if you’ve then got to go to the supermarket to buy the missing stuff.

MSE_Rob_Z

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81972584#Comment_81972584

I've probably ordered a couple of dozen boxes with them over the years, and definitely experienced that a bit earlier on. Haven't had this issue in the last year or so though, so maybe they've pulled their fingers out!

Emmia

We have missing ingredients from one in 3 green chef boxes - usually a chilli for some reason. Normally it's ok for one of us to pick one up from the greengrocer.

We always report the missing item, and a portion of the cost is refunded as a credit of our next box - this is always more than the actual cost of the chilli /missing item.

We've previously done Gousto (dropped as they insisted on using a delivery company which is seemingly unable to find out address and would just abandon the box somewhere vaguely nearby at random). We then swapped to Hello Fresh, but that seemed a bit light on the veg... So we swapped to Green Chef.

It is an expensive way of shopping though, so we've been collecting the recipe cards and plan to cancel the boxes fairly shortly... Hubby has an idea to put the recipes on an e-reader (an old kindle) and some idea of a whizzy way of auto creating a shopping list depending on the recipes we want.

medievalbiker

I have tried all of the meal boxes as I was sent a starter each year as a birthday present for about 8 years but I would never do them otherwise!

There is only one of them that does meals for one and that is at 2/3 price of meal for 2, same box as meal for 2 without the protein. this makes them terrible for single people both nuitritionally and financially.

For a family of 4 they are great but, for a singles a waste of time and money unless you have zero immagination and deep pockets.

Also if you have a rare allergy, odds on they don't recognise it, in my case mushrooms (including truffle)! After informing them of this, on more than one occassion I was sent a substitution that included mushrooms.