Meal Box Delivery Review – Four Meal Kits Tried and Tested

The four main meal box delivery services in Australia tested to compare cost, value, range, & quality. Here’s the review with handy comparison table.

Have you seen all the meal subscription services and wondered if they are any good or if they are good value?

This year, we tried all four of the main food subscription services to see what they were like, and this article is our honest opinion about each option.

At the end of the article, I have included a comparison table highlighting the main differences between each meal kit service. 

TL;DR: Despite the marketing, buying your groceries at the supermarket is cheaper as long as you aren’t throwing groceries away. 

Given that Australians throw around 20% of the food they buy (on average), that’s the benefit of a food box – you only get what you will eat that week. That can reduce waste and save you money.

But if you plan your meals to stop waste, shop the sales, buy home brands, and shop at Aldi, it’s much cheaper not to use a meal kit. 

You can find a summary and comparison of all the details about each meal box delivery service at the end of the article. 

I purchased, paid for, and tried all the meal kits for at least two weeks to do this review. Pepperleaf is another Australian meal kit service; however, at the time of writing, it was unavailable in my area. Prices are correct at the time of writing, May 2023. Some of the links are affiliate links. 

How Does a Meal Subscription Service Work?

Most meal services work in a similar way. 

The first step is to sign up for a service. All four options we tried are subscription models and automatically bill you each week until you cancel. 

It’s important to note that you need to give a certain amount of notice when cancelling. The number of days depends on the subscription, so it’s important to check out the cancellation time before signing up so you know.

Once you’ve signed up, you choose how many meals you would like delivered per week and how many people you want the meals for. We chose five days for four people.

Next, you’re taken to a page to select which meals you want in your first and subsequent deliveries. Most subscriptions pre-populate the selection with recommendations, but you can choose your own. Just make sure to make your choices for the following weeks (if you keep the subscription) before the cut-off date OR to cancel before the cancellation cut-off date.

Another thing to note is the services offer premium meals, which you have to pay extra for, on top of the subscription and delivery cost. Those meals are labelled with an additional charge, so you can avoid them if you don’t want to pay more.

The final step is to choose your delivery time and wait for your first meal box. When it does, it’s important to unpack it as soon as practical and refrigerate the cold items so they last the whole week.

All the services allow you to skip weeks, giving you the flexibility to use it or not when you want. They all allow you to cancel easily via their website. 

Benefits of a Meal Kit Delivery Service

The general benefits we found were:

• A meal subscription encouraged us to try new dishes and new ingredients. We discovered some new family favourites, and the kids discovered a love of cucumber, which is not my favourite vegetable, so I don’t normally buy it.
• A meal subscription reduces your mental load. Even with years of meal planning experience, picking two weeks worth of meals in a few minutes and then not having to worry about grocery shopping (at least for those meals) saved a lot of time and mental load.
• A meal box can reduce waste because you’re only getting enough produce for the meals you will make for the week.
• All of your dinners (and potentially more) get delivered to your door each week hassle-free.

Downsides of a Meal Kit Service

Not everything about meal kits is unicorns and rainbows. Here’s what we found were the downsides:

• If you make budget meals as we do, a meal kit subscription costs more than if you meal plan and buy groceries yourself. Using a meal kit almost doubled our grocery bill, although we ate more veggies than normal.
• There’s not a lot of room for creative flexibility. You get the recipe. You get the ingredients. 
• There’s lots of plastic packaging. Between the individually wrapped portions of everything, the cold bag, and the ice bricks, there’s a lot of plastic. Even if you do nothing to reduce plastic from the grocery store, buying in bulk rather than individual serves reduces plastic.
• You will need a well-stocked pantry. If you don’t have a well-stocked pantry and forget to check the recipe for extra items, you might not have all the ingredients to make a meal.
• They don’t deliver to all areas. Sorry people from the bush, you miss out again. Not all meal kit services deliver to all areas, and they may charge extra depending on where you live.

Can You Actually Save Money with a Meal Kit Delivery Service?

Some meal kits claim you can save money with a meal subscription. 

Everyplate, for example, says Aussies nationwide can save up to 45% by choosing to cook with EveryPlate over the supermarket.

That’s a pretty bold claim.

But how does this claim hold up?

The claim pivots around the idea that we waste a lot of food that we buy. Because meal kits only supply the needed amount, you’re not wasting food and therefore saving money.

While I’ll compare the actual prices of specific meals below, here’s a general overview.

For us, a meal kit service is more expensive than our regular grocery shop, and in some cases, a lot more. It’s much cheaper for us to meal plan and grocery shop – especially when we shop around. Even accounting for grocery delivery fees (we get home delivery), it’s cheaper for us to buy groceries. 

There are some caveats to that, however. 

With the meal kit service, the portion sizes were bigger than what I would normally serve, and we had plenty of leftovers for lunches. Sometimes we got two meals out of one, which lowered the overall cost.

The vegetable servings were bigger than what I would normally serve, although part of that is the entire portion size was bigger.

A meal kit might be a cheaper alternative if you’re normally on a sirloin steak budget instead of a sausage budget like us. 

And if you tend to have a lot of wasted food, then a meal kit will reduce the cost of wasted groceries.

What if You’re Single or Have a Large Family? Can You Use a Subscription Box?

The meal subscriptions don’t have an option for one meal. However, there are workarounds if you would like to try one.

A friend of my mum’s told me she gets a meal kit for two people for three days and cooks (or reheats, depending on the recipe) half the meal each day. 

That gives her six days of meals with leftovers.

Alternatively, you can save half the meal for lunch the following day.

Meal kits offer the option for up to six people, but if you need more, you can get two kits of varying sizes. 

Keep in mind that the serving size is for adults, so if you have younger kids who don’t eat much, a box for four may stretch to feed five. I think that’s why we had so much left over. My youngest isn’t the biggest dinner eater (unless it’s Mac and Cheese, but that’s another story).

And you can always add an extra side like bread or salad to stretch a meal even further without buying an additional box etc.

What Kind of Pantry Staples Do You Need to Have on Hand?

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t get all the ingredients you need to cook each meal in your subscription box. 

Some companies supply more ingredients than others, but you still need a fairly well-stocked pantry. For example, Hello Fresh usually provides tomato paste in a single-size serving, while with Dinnerly, you need to have it on hand.

Here’s a list of the pantry items required for the meals during the weeks we were subscribed. I wrote this list from all the meals available from all four meal kits; you won’t need all the pantry items listed below in any given week.

• Barbeque sauce
• Brown sugar
• Butter
• Chilli
• Cooking oil
• eggs
• flour
• garlic
• Honey
• Mayonnaise
• Milk
• Oil spray
• Olive oil
• Pepper
• Salt
• Soy sauce
• Tomato paste
• Tomato sauce
• Various mustards (wholegrain, Dyjon)
• Various kinds of vinegar (white, red, balsamic)
• Various sugars (brown, white)
• Water

Read further: 14 Frugal Pantry Staples That Save You Money

General Tips to Make the Most of Your Meal Kit Subscription

Here are some general tips I found useful when using food subscription boxes.

1. Read the recipes ahead of time. Ensure you have all the pantry items and understand the recipe steps. 
2. If you’re proficient in the kitchen, you can change the order of the steps for efficiency. For example, you can prep vegetables while the meat is cooking.
3. Save time on the night by prepping what you can ahead of time. You can marinate meat straight away and store it in the fridge, ready to cook. Prep vegetables and store them in containers.
4. 3. Use time-saving devices like rice cookers and air-fryers. If you have a rice cooker or air-fryer, adjust the recipe to save time and fuss. All of our rice dishes were cooked using the rice cooker. We cooked a lot of the pan-fried meat in the air fryer or oven, and it reduced the amount of splatter mess we had to clean up.
5. If you’re getting Hello Fresh or Marley Spoon, unpack the bags and store the vegetables in the crisper so they last the week.
6. Look at the cards before deciding which order to have the meals. They suggest which meals to eat first to ensure the produce doesn’t go bad before using it.
7. When choosing meals, look at the sides as well as the protein option. I tried to get a variety of chicken, beef, pork, and vegetarian meals for the week and ended up with an entire week of coleslaw on the side!!
8. Look at the cut-off dates to choose your meals in time (otherwise, you get a pre-selected range of meals). If you want to cancel, you’ll also need to know the cut-off date. If you cancel after that date, you will get another box.
9. You can use a store-bought bottled salad dressing instead of using vinegar on your salad to save time.

Hello Fresh

We tried Hello Fresh for two weeks, using one of their many promotions to get a discount on the first few boxes.

The ordering and delivery process was smooth without any problems. All of the food was packed well and came cold and intact.

Overall, the meals were tasty and easy to prepare with easy-to-follow instructions.

The only quality issue was that some of the beans were mouldy, and we had to throw them out. This was during extensive flooding in Australia, so I can’t say if this was a one-off due to circumstances or a general problem.

Where Does Hello Fresh Deliver?

Hello Fresh delivers in all states and territories except Tasmania, but not necessarily all regional areas, and some regional areas have additional delivery costs.

You can find out whether they deliver to your area on their website.

You can choose three delivery windows, including a Saturday if no one is home during the week (the exact days will differ depending on where you live).

The box comes packed into pre-portioned paper bags, which makes unpacking easy (more on that below).

Plan Options

Hello Fresh has plans for two, four, and six people, and you can get meals delivered for three, four, or five days.

Hello Fresh offers premium meals that you pay extra on top of the regular subscription. 

Like the look of pistachio-encrusted lamb? 

That’s going to cost you a bit extra.

The week we tried Hello Fresh, they had 35 meal options, 28 as part of the regular subscription and seven premium meals. 

Eight meals were vegetarian, three were seafood, and the rest were beef, pork, and chicken, with one premium lamb option.

Do they do add-ons?

When ordering, you can add extra items to your delivery. Some of these add-ons included:

• Side salads
• Garlic bread for two
• Desserts
• Ready (microwave) meals
• A fruit box

Price

At the time of writing, the full cost of a Hello Fresh box for four people for five nights is $165 plus $9.99 delivery, so a total of $174.99. 

That’s an average cost of $34.99 per meal and $8.75 per serving.

For two people for five nights, the total cost is $114.99.

Hello Fresh Pros

• Generous servings
• Tasty meals 
• Plenty of variety
• Flexible subscription 
• Lots of vegetables
• Kid-friendly recipes

Cons

• Lots of packaging
• Some of the beans in one delivery were mouldy

Tips for Using Hello Fresh

The Hello Fresh meals come pre-packed in individual paper bags for easy unpacking. 

That makes it easy to check that you received all the ingredients, but it’s important to unpack the bags and store your vegetables correctly in the crisper.

We didn’t do this the first week. We just threw the paper bags into the fridge, thinking how easy the system was. Bad idea. The veg went limp and dried out overnight. 

We unpacked the bags the following week, storing the vegetables correctly in the crisper, and the vegetables lasted the week.

Hello Fresh v Supermarket Price

To gauge the value of the meals, I’ve taken one Hello Fresh meal and recreated it with supermarket items to compare the cost.

There are some caveats. I’ve calculated the average cost per serve based on the whole box plus delivery cost and divided it by the number of serves. Some meals are going to be more costly than others. 

For example, a full box of beef meals will be better value than a whole box of vegetarian pasta dishes.

My point is this isn’t an exact comparison because of the averaging.

The other thing to remember is that I’m guessing some ingredient quantities. The recipes call for one packet of this or one packet of that, and I didn’t have the foresight to measure everything. So it’s a close comparison, not exact to the cent.

Seasonality will also affect the price comparison.

Finally, it’s important to note that you can’t just buy small portions at the supermarket. If you need quinoa, you will have to buy a whole bag (or get creative by substituting the microwave saches). 

So the total one-off cost of groceries is quite a bit higher to recreate the meal. This extra cost is offset when you use the ingredients in subsequent meals.

Now to the comparison.

I recreated (as best I could) the Easy Beef Meatballs and Black Bean Glaze recipe (pictured above). All ingredients were purchased at Woolworths at full price. I used premium mince but couldn’t find millet. 

The approximate cost per serving to recreate this meal from Woolworths groceries was $5.05 (+ extra pantry ingredients).

Compared to the average cost per serving for a Hello Fresh meal ($8.75 including delivery), that’s a saving of $3.70 per serving or $14.80 per meal. You could save more by shopping around or buying items on sale.

Overall Verdict

Hello Fresh was probably our favourite meal kit in terms of flavouful recipes. There was plenty of variety, and the recipes were a bit more sophisticated than our usual fare while still being easy to cook. 

Check out the Hello Fresh website for more information.

Marley Spoon

Marley Spoon is the most expensive meal kit of the four reviewed here, but their recipes reflect that cost, being a bit more ‘fancy’ than the other kits and certainly fancier than what I normally cook.

If you like crispy skin Barramundi, smoked salmon and feta salad, maple-glazed chicken, or four-cheese ravioli, and you don’t mind paying extra, then Marley Spoon will be the box to try.

All ingredients were fresh and we had no problems with the delivery.

The recipes were delicious but we found them to be more time-consuming and use more pots and pans than the other kits, so extra washing up. They were a bit fancy for my kid’s tastes too.

Where Does Marley Spoon Deliver?

Marley Spoon delivers in all capital cities and some major centres nearby, including Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, the greater Perth region and Darwin.

You can enter your postcode on the order form to see if they deliver to your area – our location isn’t on the above list, but they deliver to us.

Upon sign-up, you will be given a choice of days to receive your delivery. We had a choice of four days, including Saturday, which is useful if you’re not home during the week.

The box comes packed into pre-portioned paper bags, which makes unpacking easy.

Plan Options

Marley Spoon has plans for two or four people, and you can get meals delivered for two, three, four, or five days. You can also choose to make your box vegetarian.

Marley Spoon offers premium meals that you pay extra for on top of the regular subscription. 

The week we tried it, they had 50 meal options, 43 as part of the regular subscription and seven premium meals. 

Eleven meals were vegetarian, nine were seafood, and the rest were beef, pork, chicken and lamb.

Do they do add-ons?

When ordering, you can add extra items to your delivery. Some of these add-ons included:

• A fruit box
• Lunches
• Juices
• Ready-made meals
• Soups
• Snacks
• Desserts
• Other drinks
• Spices, Sauces, and other Marley Spoon ingredients

Price

At the time of writing, the full cost of a Marley Spoon box for four people for five nights is $169 plus $10.49 delivery, so a total of $180.29. 

That’s an average cost of $36.06 per meal and $9.01 per serving (including delivery).

For two people for five nights, the total cost is $125.39 or $12.54 per serving (including delivery).

Marley Spoon Pros

• Marley Spoon has the largest selection and the most variety
• The meals are fancier than the mince and mash of the cheaper boxes
• Each meal comes packed in separate bags, making it easier to unpack
• They are linked to the Everyday Rewards Card, so if you collect points, you can get them through your Marley Spoon subscription.

Marley Spoon Cons

• This is the most expensive meal kit reviewed here
• The recipes were fussier, took longer to prep, cook, and involved more washing up.

Tips for Using Marley Spoon

Unpack the bags and store the vegetables in the crisper to ensure they keep fresh until the end of the week.

Prep vegetables and parts of the meals ahead to save time on busy weeknights.

Marley v Supermarket Price

For details on how I compared the Marley Spoon meal cost with a recreation using supermarket ingredients, check out the explanation in the Hello Fresh section above.

To summarise, the Marley Spoon cost is an average of the whole subscription cost, and the grocery store recreation is an approximation. You also have to buy whole bottles and packets of things, so the cost below reflects the per-serving cost, not the total grocery bill.

I recreated the Family Fave Lamb Borek recipe (pictured above). All ingredients were purchased at Woolworths at full price. 

The approximate cost per serving to recreate this meal from Woolworths groceries was $5.45 (+ extra pantry ingredients).

Compared to the average cost per serving for a Marley Spoon meal ($9.01 including delivery), that’s a saving of $3.56 per serving or $14.25 per meal. You could save more by shopping around or buying items on sale. 

Overall Verdict

We enjoyed the meals we bought from Marley Spoon – they were fancier than what we normally eat. We would rate this our third favourite meal kit.

However, Marley Spoon is beyond our normal budget, and the recipes required more work and more washing up than the other meal kits in our experience.

Check out the Marley Spoon website for more information.

EveryPlate

EveryPlate is the same company as Hello Fresh, but is the cheaper version.

The recipes were a good balance between easy, budget home cooking and flavour variety with a few fancy extras.

We stayed with Everyplate the longest, using it for a few months in 2022 during the supply-chain crisis and floods and then trying it again this year (2023). 

Despite the unavoidable disruptions and substitutions necessary during the floods, we felt the service and quality of ingredients was very good. 

While we were happy with the meals and the ingredients overall quality, Everyplate was let down by poor customer service. 

Some boxes had missing ingredients, sometimes critical ingredients like meat. And while we were given a prompt refund, we had to make an extra trip to the shops, which defeats the purpose of getting a subscription box.

We also received an after-cancellation sales phone call from a bloke who was very pushy and re-activated our account even after I said no several times. After a few good months with Everyplate, the pushy sales dude spoiled it a bit.

Where Does EveryPlate Deliver?

EveryPlate delivers to many regions within New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, and the ACT. You can find out whether they deliver to your area on their website.

You can choose daytime or nighttime delivery windows from Saturday to Wednesday (the exact days will differ depending on where you live). 

The cold ingredients, like meat and dairy, come in an insulated bag with ice bricks, and the other ingredients come loose in the box.

Plan Options

EveryPlate has plans for two, four, and six people, and you can get meals delivered for three, four, five, or six days. The cost per meal varies, depending on the plan you choose.

EveryPlate also offers premium meals that you pay extra for on top of the regular subscription. 

The week we tried it, they had 22 meal options, 17 as part of the regular subscription and five premium meals. 

Six meals were vegetarian options, one was a seafood option, but it was a premium meal, and the rest were beef, pork, and chicken options.

Do they do add-ons?

When ordering, you can add extra items to your delivery. Some of these add-ons included:

• Fruit boxes of different sizes
• Batch cooking meals with six serves

Price

At the time of writing, the full cost of an EveryPlate box for four people for five nights is $110 plus $9.99 delivery, so a total of $119.99. 

That’s an average cost of $24.00 per meal and $6.00 per serving (rounded).

For two people for five nights, the total cost is $89.98.

Everyplate Pros

• Quality produce.
• Less expensive than the fancier boxes, but still has a good variety of food.
• Big portion sizes. We had lots of leftovers.
• Kid-friendly recipes

Everyplate Cons

• Not as good of a variety. A lot of mince and potatoes. 
• We had a bad experience with their customer service.

Tips for Using Everyplate

I recommend checking the ingredients in your box against the recipe cards to ensure you receive all your items. If this happens, call them up. You’ll get a refund for the missing items.

Everyplate v Supermarket Price

For details on how I compared the Everyplate meal cost with a recreation using supermarket ingredients, check out the explanation in the Hello Fresh section above.

To summarise, the Everyplate cost is an average of the whole subscription cost, and the grocery store recreation is an approximation. You also have to buy whole bottles and packets of things, so the cost below reflects the per-serving cost, not the total grocery bill.

I recreated the Vietnamese-Style Pork and Garlic Rice recipe (pictured above). All ingredients were purchased at Woolworths at full price. 

The approximate cost per serving to recreate this meal from Woolworths groceries was $3.70 (+ extra pantry ingredients).

Compared to the average cost per serving for an Everyplate meal ($6.00 including delivery), that’s a saving of $2.30 per serving or $9.19 per meal. You could save more by shopping around or buying items on sale.

Overall Verdict

The recipes and quality of the produce were great for the cost. Not quite as fancy as Hello Fresh, but not as basic as Dinnerly. Despite the poor service, this was still our favourite meal kit, balancing flavour and value.

Check out the EveryPlate website for more information.

Dinnerly

Dinnerly stands out as the meal kit with the least packaging. The recipes and ingredients are simple, and they don’t print out the recipes – you need to view them on their website or app.

The Dinnerly recipes are also the most basic and frills-free. 

Some of the extra flavour relies on pantry items you already have on hand. You have to supply your own mustards and sauces – you don’t get as many little individual servings. This is both a pro (in terms of packaging) and a con (regarding value and convenience).

For example, they provided lettuce leaves for a side salad and suggested we add our own tomatoes and cucumbers (along with our own dressing) to make it a complete salad. The other food boxes would provide all the salad ingredients (but not the dressing).

I found Dinnerly also had the longest cancellation period. 

You have to cancel weeks in advance if you decide you don’t like their service. I got around this by ordering the first box and pausing all the following deliveries to give me plenty of time to test it out and decide whether I wanted to continue or cancel. 

Dinnerly is the same company as Marley Spoon – their budget option.

Where Does Dinnerly Deliver?

At the time of writing, Dinnerly delivers to Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Adelaide, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Wollongong, Newcastle, the greater Perth region, Darwin and NSW’s Central Coast, according to their website. 

You can find out whether they deliver to your area on their website by entering your postcode and email (we don’t live in the regions listed above but still got delivery).

Plan Options

Dinnerly has plans for two or four people, and you can get meals delivered for two, three, four, five, or six days. The cost per portion varies, depending on the plan you choose.

As with the other food box subscriptions, Dinnerly also offers premium meals that you pay extra for on top of the regular subscription. 

The week we tried it, they had 57 meal options, 48 as part of the regular subscription and nine premium meals. 

Twelve meals were vegetarian, six were seafood, and the rest were beef, pork, lamb, and chicken.

Do they do add-ons?

When we tried Dinnerly, they did not have add-ons available, but according to their blog, they have introduced Market by Dinnerly, where you can buy extra ingredients, seasonal specials, and ready-made meals to be delivered with your recipe box.

Price

At the time of writing, the full cost of a Dinnerly box for four people for five nights is $129.80 plus $10.49 delivery, so a total of $140.29. 

That’s an average cost of $28.06 per meal and $7.01 per serving (this includes the delivery cost).

For two people for five nights, the total cost is $85.39 or $8.54 per portion.

Dinnerly Pros

• Dinnerly had the least amount of packaging
• Simple meals using simple ingredients
• Kid-friendly recipes
• They are linked to the Everyday Rewards Card, so if you collect points through your Dinnerly subscription.

Cons

• The recipes rely more on pantry items on hand than other meal box services.
• No recipe cards – the recipes are available in the app. That can be a pro as well.
• Dinnerly were a bit stingy on the side salad. 
• The recipes felt a bit no-frills after using the other boxes.

Dinnerly v Supermarket Price

For details on how I compared the Dinnerly meal cost with a recreation using supermarket ingredients, check out the explanation in the Hello Fresh section above.

To summarise, the Dinnerly cost is an average of the whole subscription cost, and the grocery store recreation is an approximation. You also have to buy whole bottles and packets of things, so the cost below reflects the per-serving cost, not the total grocery bill.

I recreated the Spinach and Feta Stuffed Chicken recipe (not pictured above, this is another Dinnerly recipe we cooked, but I couldn’t find the recipe card to recreate it). All ingredients were purchased at Woolworths, and I paid full price. 

The approximate cost per portion to recreate this meal from Woolworths groceries was $4.26 (+ extra pantry ingredients).

Compared to the average cost per serving for a Dinnerly meal ($7.01 including delivery), that’s a saving of $2.75 per serving or $11.03 per meal. You could save more by shopping around or buying items on sale.

To be fair, the recipe calls for around 500g of chicken breast, and you cut it up to share. If I was making this with supermarket ingredients, I would buy a chicken breast each, and that would come to around $6.70 per serving, a lot closer to the Dinnerly price, although better value. 

I also couldn’t find mint and garlic seasoning and substituted it with Masterfoods garlic and herb blend.

Overall Verdict

Dinnerly was fine, but our least favourite meal kit. With the basic meals and the heavy reliance on pantry staples, paying extra for the service didn’t feel like good value for us.

They also require a lot of notice to change or cancel orders, so you may pay for an extra box you don’t want if you don’t cancel well in advance.

The upside of Dinnerly was they had less packaging than the other recipe boxes.

Check out the Dinnerly website for more information.

Comparison Table

Here’s a summary of the information above.

The ratings are based on our opinion (me, hubby, and the kids) after trying each of the services – it’s not a comprehensive survey of customers.

	Hello Fresh	Everyplate	Dinnerly	Marley Spoon
Cost 2 people, 5 days	$105	$79.99	$74.90	$114.90
Cost for 5 days, 4 people	$165	$110	$130	$169.80
Delivery Cost	$9.99	$9.99	$10.50	$10.49
Total Cost for 5 days, 4 people	174.99	119.99	140.5	180.29
Delivery Area	Most coastal locations, some large rural centres	Cities and some regional areas in NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, ACT	All capital cities + Launceston, Gold Coast, Wollongong, Newcastle, NSW Central Coast	All capital cities + Wollongong, Newcastle, Launceston, Gold Coast
Number of meals choices in a week	35	22	57	50
Number of vegetarian options*	8	12	12	11
Number of recipes 600 calories or below	8	5	21	15
Number of extra cost recipes	7	5	9	7
Add ons available	yes	yes	yes	yes
Cancellation lead time	At least 7 days before delivery, according to state cut-off times.	By 11:59 PM AEST on Tuesday, the week before delivery, according to their website.	At least 7 days before your next box is delivered (we found it to be 17)	At least 7 days before your next box is delivered, according to cut-off times
Variety	4	3	4	5
Ease of Recipes	4	5	4	3
Freshness of ingredients	4	5	5	5
Cost & Value	4	5	3	4
Overall rating	16	18	16	17

*Some of the vegetarian options were also vegan. Some included ‘plant-based’ options, i.e. plant-based ‘meats’.

Meal Subscription Box FAQs