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Recipe Boxes

Started by Chedney Honks, April 12, 2021, 09:28:26 AM

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Chedney Honks

If you don't know what these are, the best known are Gousto, Hello Fresh and Mindful Chef but there are loads nowadays. You order your dishes for the week and they send you measured ingredients and recipe instructions in a box.

My instinct was always that these were S4C but I recently tried Gousto for a month because I had an offer code from a mate and I was very decently surprised. Firstly of all, 3/4 meals turned out great and 1/4 was fine, all tasty and pretty healthy, some really delicious, but more importantly it got me cooking a much wider range of dishes, some of which I've subsequently prepared myself with my own inspired customisations.

Probably works out a bit expensive just for two but I reckon there's loads of discount codes going around in waves so I'll probably rotate between the different ones for a bit. You typically order four meals at a time, so I just cook my own shit the other three days then it's my wife's week to do food and I have seven days off even thinking about it. That's how we live.

The alternative is to get my own bottle of rice wine vinegar and some fucking saffron and just use a bit at a time for ages. I can't live like that.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Had a couple of these, and I appreciate some businesses have had to find ways to adapt to lockdown, but the amount of waste involved to keep items separated and fresh on delivery was genuinely shocking. Even though some of it is fully recyclable I don't think that excuses it and I wouldn't want to voluntarily use them again.

As for the concept, there's some initial novelty value, but overall, meh. The cost per item is enormously expensive versus sourcing your own ingredients and the whole thing just seems like a decadent pisstake.

DrGreggles

My eyes haven't woken up yet.
Could've sworn the thread title said 'Rodney Bewes'.

imitationleather

I got an ad for one which lets you cook British Airways food at home. I assumed it was an April fool but apparently not. 100 bloody quid a box!

To be honest when I'm like "I want some fine dining at home" I don't think "I should have the stuff they eat on planes!"

Chedney Honks

They are wasteful and expensive without the discount code, I agree.

I do think they're decent, though, and the mammoth cost to the planet is offset by the 57% variety in my meals every other week.

Sebastian Cobb

I have found it difficult to get inspired with cooking under lockdown because the process of finding ingredients has been pretty draining, there's guaranteed to be stuff missing or substituted from a supermarket shop and they usually don't include all stock.

But these things seem like a massive rip-off and also wasteful. I tend to get what I need for certain meals for a weekly shop then throw some extra things in to use up the leftovers in extra cheap meals (e.g. lobbing in a pack of sausages for bangers and mash because something else needed a bag of spuds) and these things don't allow that, so you're getting ripped off both upfront on cost and a second time on the volume.

Gurke and Hare

I once used a deal to get a week's worth from Hello Fresh for very little money, and it was fine but yeah, there's no way I'm paying full price. For the cash rich and time poor, I guess.

What's the one that seems to be about the same price as the others, but they just send you some spices and you still have to do the shopping for the rest of the ingredients? Fuck that one.

Jittlebags

Just subscribe to a Meals on Wheels service.

Buelligan

This.

Seen them advertised on youtube, that's my proximity.  I do keep a bottle of rice wine vinegar (in reality, I never have less than three in the house at any one time, just in case I run out - I must never run out).  No saffron but my neighbour grows it so, you know.  Heheh.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteFor the cash rich and time poor, I guess.

There is still the cooking to do though, so it's still more time intensive than ordering frozen groceries delivered from a supermarket, or cooked from a restaurant or takeaway. I saw these boxes as being more for faux-epicurists who want the sensation of exploring with a hint of restaurant flourish without the drudgery of a normal grocery run, the reality of batch cooking, the chopping and slicing etc.

The discovery of the extent to which really not that cash rich and really not that time poor people buy restaurant food delivered to their door at near table dining prices... In Leeds at least... still shocks me. I guess since the 2008 crash being aged under 40 in the UK has had an End of Days quality about it, a gathering sensation our futures are fucked and all there is to live for is today. Everyone is looking around at each other on issues like saving for a house and a pension while also having to make rent, pay utilities and tax and student loans and surmising that.. Yep... doing all of that without being endlessly miserable in a slum for decades is impossible.

wooders1978

The cote at home stuff is good (more of a ready meal of sorts though)

I too am concerned by the effect all this "have it home" stuff is having in the environment though, along with all the disposable masks

Buelligan

The disposable masks thing is frightening[nb]And the packaging of food too, of course.[/nb].

Blue Jam

What was the very first (now defunct) one of these called? Leaping Salmon or something like that? EDIT: (Yes it was, and they they did go bust, maybe they were just ahead of their time). My flatmate at the time (around 2002) ordered one of these pioneering new kits so he could cook his ex a nice dinner and try to get her to take him back. The recipes were supposedly idiot-proof and he still managed to fuck it all up. I think the desert was some kind of vanilla souffle thing and I remember seeing its remains the next day, looking like the remains of the baby from Eraserhead.

She didn't take him back.

dissolute ocelot

It's not great for the environment but probably better than getting takeaway every night.

Not sure how much kitchen equipment is required for some of these or if they have a list of what you'll need - some give you things that'll go straight in the oven while others even if it's pre-chopped and pre-measured you presumably need some range of pans and utensils. It would suck if you got all your ingredients and then found you didn't have a suitable casserole dish or something.

Obligatory observational comedy: if you want random ingredients turning up at your door, just order a delivery from Tesco.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on April 12, 2021, 11:32:29 AM

Obligatory observational comedy: if you want random ingredients turning up at your door, just order a delivery from Tesco.

No joke I got tenderheart cabbage as a sub for cauliflower the other day. I was going to reject it but the bloke pulled some jedi mind trick by phoning me and asking me to help him carry the stuff up because the lift was fucked.

Still I got an alright bubble and squeak out of it.

steveh

Venture capitalists keep putting money into meal kits for some strange reason (assuming everyone leads lifestyles like them?) but over twenty plus years of past attempts they have all failed at the point when the investment stopped massively subsidising them and they need to become properly viable. The only difference now is that companies can raise a lot more money now than they could twenty years ago so the point at which they go bust is delayed.

Chedney Honks

Partly I just posted this thread to get a reaction from my mate Twit 2 and hope to draw him out x

Dex Sawash


Wife has signed up for a bunch of these. Have never received one with the fish still frozen or even cool enough to maybe eat. The vegetarian ones seem particularly pointless as they are still about $20/meal and you get 1 sweet potato smaller than your fist, 1 shallot, 40g rice, 3 green onions, 1 jalapeno and half a carrot. Imagine how little they pay the poor fucker to be a carrot halver.

Neomod

These'll be joining Loot Boxes in the not too distant future. If your product needs continuous discount codes to make them worthwhile then it's an untenable model.

The adverts for these were all over podcasts a few years ago weren't they. Massive marketing budget and discounts = money pit.

Chedney Honks

So the general view is make hay whiles the sun shines.

Got it.

BlodwynPig


Blue Jam

Quote from: Dex Sawash on April 12, 2021, 12:36:49 PM
Wife has signed up for a bunch of these. Have never received one with the fish still frozen or even cool enough to maybe eat. The vegetarian ones seem particularly pointless as they are still about $20/meal and you get 1 sweet potato smaller than your fist, 1 shallot, 40g rice, 3 green onions, 1 jalapeno and half a carrot. Imagine how little they pay the poor fucker to be a carrot halver.

Obligatory observational comedy: Something something lockdown free school meals something something

thenoise

Quote from: Blue Jam on April 12, 2021, 11:14:24 AM
What was the very first (now defunct) one of these called? Leaping Salmon or something like that? EDIT: (Yes it was, and they they did go bust, maybe they were just ahead of their time).

I have a feeling there were diet type regimes where you would give them all your money and chuck away all your food and they would deliver everything all portioned for you. Not quite the same target but similar idea.

Endless ads for this on YouTube telling me how much money I would save. Uh, no. Its stupid to compare it to the cost of eating out because I am cooking it myself, doing the washing up myself and eating it in my own home I.e. I'm eating at home, and this is a very expensive way to eat at home - more than a cheap/cheerful takeaway, and I can eat that straight out of the box.


Captain Z

I want to hear more about Rodney Bewes.

Rizla

S4C. It's a guarantee. Listen to me. It's S4C.

I have experienced these. A S?S! points out, the waste from packaging is verging on the satirical.

The Dishoom bacon naan ad keeps coming up on facebook. £17 for half a packet of streaky bacon and a couple of doughballs. Couple of small pots of sauce. Embarrassing.




Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Neomod on April 12, 2021, 12:37:07 PM
If your product needs continuous discount codes to make them worthwhile then it's an untenable model.

Isn't that what a lot of business' success is based on though, from supermarket's fake wine/ice cream discounting to pizza takeaways?

For example, Dominos is so expensive at face value only a moron would pay their normal prices (or buy anything from them in general but let's not go into that) that their 'discounts' seem comparatively generous.

Supermarkets seem to have figured out that having the same product priced at £9 one week then £5 the next means so long as a set number of people buy them at each price they make the optimum amount they need for the volume they order and price they pay.

If anything the recipe box business' are untenable because as independents they don't have the financial muscle, economies of scale or brand power to permanently break out of the nouveau riche who would buy the food at face value, or the wannabes (which at a push, include people like me) who scrounge discounts.

Blue Jam

Quote from: thenoise on April 12, 2021, 05:47:42 PM
I have a feeling there were diet type regimes where you would give them all your money and chuck away all your food and they would deliver everything all portioned for you. Not quite the same target but similar idea.

Yes, I remember reading something about one service that was popular with Hollywood types, which basically delivered three jars of baby food per day. I guess some of the Huel subscription services are not unlike that.

Quote from: Rizla on April 12, 2021, 06:04:35 PM
The Dishoom bacon naan ad keeps coming up on facebook. £17 for half a packet of streaky bacon and a couple of doughballs. Couple of small pots of sauce. Embarrassing.

I wanted to support a local pizza place here during lockdown, so went to their website to order a pizza and found they only do "Make Your Own Pizza" kits, where for £10 you get dough balls, tomato sauce, basil, olives and mozzarella, and toppings are extra.

Their dough is admittedly very good but that just sounds like such a faff, and as I don't have a pizza oven I couldn't fully recreate the taste anyway. Pizza dough is also fairly simple (and very cheap) to make. I make pizzas myself all the time so if I was to order one I'd prefer to not have to do all the work.

And yes, the packaging is a bit much too.

imitationleather

Quote from: thenoise on April 12, 2021, 05:47:42 PM
I have a feeling there were diet type regimes where you would give them all your money and chuck away all your food and they would deliver everything all portioned for you. Not quite the same target but similar idea.

I keep getting ads on Facebook for one called Lions Prep that has endorsements from A listers such as Simon Pegg.

I had a look at it and the price is basically equivalent to buying three takeaways every day.

Blue Jam

There's an episode of Corporate where one employee is such a workaholic he doesn't even stop for lunch, just sticks a straw in a bottle of something called "Pseudofooooood" and keeps going. I imagine Huel is not unlike that.

I do use protein powder myself but I put it in smoothies along with actual food. Made one this morning with frozen strawberries, oat milk, almond butter, two scoops of chocolate protein powder and two scoops of vanilla protein powder. Neopolitan smoothie. Nice.

popcorn

Tried Hello Fresh the other week. Seemed all right but I've got loads of codes so not paying much for it yet. Might bin it off.

Here's a £20 discount code for Hello Fresh if anyone wants one.