Hello Fresh : From Skeptic to Subscriber

I was not financially compensated for this post but HelloFresh did provide me with a free box. To ensure that my experience remained unbiased, I created a new account under a different name on Hello Fresh for this shipment. All opinions are my own.

Hey friends! I thought I’d do a little update since my last Hello Fresh Post and let you know my thoughts on it now that I have gone from being a skeptic to a subscriber.

I have a B.S. in Home Economics and I’ve authored three bestselling cookbooks. I can go to the grocery store, buy whatever I need, come home and cook anything I want. With that in mind, I had a difficult time seeing the appeal of a meal delivery service. They seemed like good options for folks who don’t regularly cook or perhaps don’t know how to cook (the instructions are super easy to follow so it is something of a cooking class in a box) but for seasoned cooks it just didn’t make a lot of sense – until I tried it.

For me, Hello Fresh is a fun cooking experience at a time in my life where I tend to stick with the “old dependable” dishes that my family requests over and over. My monthly box gives me a chance to try things I normally wouldn’t try and then when we love them I have the full recipe so it’s easy to add into our regular rotation. I love that it all comes to me in one package, everything I need to make a meal and a full color recipe card of what it’s going to look like when I’m done. No looking around the grocery store for ingredients I don’t know if I’ll ever use again and no thinking ahead for a shopping trip. Wanna cook something new and exciting? Here ya go! All you need is at your fingertips.

A few things have changed with HelloFresh since I first tried it out. Most notable among these changes is their packaging. There is far less now in terms of boxes and packing material. Now, each recipe is packaged individually in a brown paper sack and the insulation in the box is some sort of recycled padding which seems to do the job every bit as well as the old packaging but with less waste.

This is the inside of my box after I removed the bags of ingredients. There is a recycled insulating layer around the entire inside of the box with a cardboard separator between the ingredient bags and meats. The meat is still packaged in between two very solid ice sheets (in plastic). You can see from my photo that the ice blocks are pretty thick.

My shipment came from a distribution center in Atlanta, which is just a four hour drive from where I live, and arrived the next day. I had an event that day so it sat on my porch, in August Alabama heat, for several hours before I got home and brought it in late afternoon to open and take these photos. As you can see the ice was still frozen solid and the ingredients help up really well.

My veggies have always arrived chilled and fresh, just as pictured here. I generally try to make my meals within 3-5 days of receiving them to ensure everything remains at it’s best quality. This box featured Buttered Up Steak, a tender steak seared and cut into medallions and served with an herbed garlic butter, yukon gold potatoes, and some garlicky green beans. It was every bit as delicious as I hoped it would be.

Once I had time to review my box, I went back to HelloFresh and canceled the subscription I started for this post since I already have a regular account with them. Canceling was as simple as going to the “my account” page and clicking “cancel”. They did call a few days later to ask if there were any issues that caused me to cancel and to ensure I’d had a good experience. I explained that I already had a regular account and this one was simply created for a blog post. The gentleman I spoke with was very kind and thankful.

If you’d like to give HelloFresh a try, you can click here to get 50% off your first box!  Please note that these are not affiliate links.