Meal Kits

We have found Australia’s best meal kits and have provided you with the information needed to draw comparisons to make the right choice for you and your family.

Rose Fenasse
- Updated June 23, 2021
Fact checked Fully qualified and expert nutritionists have reviewed and checked this content to ensure it is as accurate as possible at the time of writing.

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How do meal kits work?

Meal kits are a service designed to provide consumers with sought out recipes and their individually pre-proportioned ingredients required to prepare a home cooked meal. Meal kits are designed to take the stress and time out of sourcing ingredients, finding a recipe and measuring portions. A meal kit takes care of all the dreaded steps often associated with cooking and leaves the consumer to choose the recipes, how many meals they require and of course the cooking part. 

Typically, consumers will specify how many people they are feeding and how many meals weekly they will like to receive. They can usually choose from generic preferences such as a vegetarian box or meat and vegetables – individual dietary requirements at this stage aren’t usually catered to. Consumers from there can choose the recipes they wish to cook for the week ahead. The meal kits are delivered straight to the user’s door with all the pre-portioned ingredients and recipe instructions, usually, pantry staples such as milk, eggs, oil aren’t included – consumers will be instructed if there is anything required but not included in the meal kits. 

What is the best meal kit delivery service in Australia?

As you can see above there are lots of option on the market at the moment, there are many considerations to take into account when trying to choose the ‘best meal kit’. The most popular and recognisable meal kit provider is HelloFresh. HelloFresh is one of the original meal kits to have hit the market and has since maintained popularity and preference in a lot of Australian homes. They often have deals and discounts for first-time triers which allows users to try before they buy, or receive meals at a seriously discounted rate.

If you were looking for the best value financially this would need to be determined by the number of meals bought, the cost per meal, the delivery cost, the quality and freshness of ingredients and your requirements i.e. if you have dietary restrictions are they being met? are you after a healthy meal? etc.

 

Are meal kits healthy?

Not necessarily! Often people associate the meals that are pre-prepared or in a meal kit to be healthy – this isn’t always the case.

It’s important to always check ingredient lists and nutritional panels to ensure they meet your needs before committing to a delivery service. Check out the below for Key factors when comparing meal kit companies.

What are the Pros & Cons of meal kit delivery services?

low carb meals pros and cons

Meal Kit Pros

  • Time-saving - As most of the work is done for you a lot of time is saved from grocery shopping, finding a recipe and planning. This allows consumers to focus on work and the highs and lows of their day without the need to do grocery shopping runs and associated preparations.
  • Takes the stress out of meals - For many households planning meals for the week can be stressful and can often become a chore. Trying to find refreshing meal choices that are new and exciting for the family can be a hard task especially when catering to a few people. Get the family involved and have them pick their favourite meal.
  • Ingredients are all pre-portioned - A positive about meal kits is that as the ingredients are all pre-portioned and prepared it saves the need for consumers to buy more of an ingredient than what they really would use or need.
  • Can be cost effective - As meals are prepared in bulk by the company, this allows for meals to be marked at competitive prices which is a huge bonus to consumers. As there are quite a few meal kits now on the market prices are often promotionally discounted or have referral incentives which again makes the prices even lower.
  • Can reduce household waste - The waste reduction can be linked to the pre-portioned amounts of ingredients that prevent consumers from having to buy ‘whole’ quantities of ingredients that they may not necessarily use again outside of the recipe in use.

Meal Kit Cons

  • Doesn’t necessarily educate consumers around food choices - A negative to draw from meal kits is that although it does get consumers cooking meals, it doesn’t actively teach or educate them on how to make healthy adjustments or choices. Most meal kits are standard meals and don’t cater to a required health goal, this emphasises consumers needing to analyse choices instead of applying blind trust.
  • May not be environmentally friendly - This is a big concern for many, the environmental impact some of these meal kits may be having in terms of packaging. As ingredients are needing to be packed, stored and transported packaging needs to be safe and reliable. Most of the ingredients are individually packed based on portion sizes and control and need to be sealed for freshness. The packets can be a big waste component including the freeze packs for storing cold goods.
  • Not many options available for singles - Unfortunately there aren’t many single options in meal kits, most boxes start for 2-person suitability working up to a 4-person plus requirement.
  • Not many options available for dietary requirements or preferences - Meal kit options are mostly generic suiting the wider majority of population choices. At this stage, due to several reasons, meal kit companies don’t usually cater to individual requirements such as allergies, dietary restrictions etc.
  • Delivery may be restrictive due to freshness and sourcing of ingredients - If you live in rural areas or even just outside of metro areas your delivery likelihood may decrease.

Key factors when comparing meal kit companies?

When choosing the right option for you, consider the following factors:

Price Per Meal, Per Week

Compare meal kits by cost per serving or per meal, many brands provide this detail when looking at meal kit selections. Also look at the discounted rates that are often offered to incentivise buying more for less. As meal kits are competitive there are also a lot of introduction offers with heavily discounted first box purchases or continual loyalty offers.

Sustainability & Environmental Efforts

Compare providers on their efforts in lowering their environmental impacts and making more eco-friendly choices. This can be seen in their corporate social responsibility statements usually on their website. Most companies will highlight their packaging standards and environmental contributions on their website as it is a huge influence on consumer choices. 

Freshness & Quality

Compare providers on the quality and where ingredients are sourced. There are many providers now taking huge steps to ensure they source high quality ingredients from Aussie suppliers.

There are also more and more providers leaning towards free-range products.

Meal Customisation

At this stage there aren’t many providers who offer ‘customisation’ of meal kits i.e. dietary restrictions, allergies etc.

There are allowances around vegetarian and vegan boxes, however, specific tailoring isn’t feasible when the production of meal kits are done in bulk to reduce costs.

Meal Kit Delivery FAQs

Unfortunately, a lot of companies don’t cater to specific requirements i.e. nut allergies, shellfish allergies, coeliac, pescatarian diets, low fodmap diets etc.

As meal kits are prepared and portioned using bulk ingredients and set menus meeting individual dietary needs can be out of reach. Especially when considering allergies preparing meals in the same facility would be too much of a risk to ensure safety and quality assurance.

Everyplate proudly boasts to be the most affordable meal kit in Australia from $2.39 per plate followed by Dinnerly and their $4.85 per serve.

At this stage, there isn’t a huge variety of vegan meal-kit market. Marley Spoon offers some vegan options throughout their menu, however, not a huge variety.

Having a meal kit is a great way to reducing food waste, as everything is prepared and specific to portion control there typically shouldn’t be any food waste.

Most meal kits have made massive leaps to create environmentally conscious steps in reducing waste. According to a University of Michigan Study, Hellofresh’s carbon footprint is 25% lower than meals bought from supermarket or grocery store – this can be linked to an efficient supply chain and distribution which in turn lowers greenhouse gas emissions.

At this stage there aren’t many meal kits designed for a 1-person portion, the lowest on offer is a 2-person offering.

They have the potential to create a lower costing grocery shop, however, they often don’t cater for snacks and essentials that you may need in your standard grocery shop.

It is unlikely ingredients are frozen in meal kits as most providers pride themselves on using fresh high-quality ingredients. However, this will depend on the provider individually and you will need to check if this is something you are wanting to avoid.

Pepperleaf has a family box for 4-6 people, 2-5 meals per week.
Every plate has a family box for 4-6 people, 3-6 meals per week.

Search and compare subscription based wellness products in Australia including meal kits, ready to eat meal delivery, vitamin subscriptions and much more at Wellhub. All content and information on this site is provided by qualified Australian nutritionists to ensure accurate representation of all products reviewed.