Freshly vs. HelloFresh

HelloFresh Pros and Cons

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Freshly Pros and Cons

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Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Price

Both Freshly and HelloFresh have various prices for meals depending on the proportions and serving sizes you order.

Freshly offers single-serving meals each week with the ability to choose to receive between four and 12 meals per week. Freshly’s least-expensive meal plan starts at $9.58 per single serving meal for 12 meals a week. On the other end of the spectrum, if you’d rather have four meals a week, then you pay $12.50 per meal, plus shipping, which varies by meal plan. Here is a breakdown of the weekly meal plans, which includes shipping:

• 4-meal plan: $50.00 per week
• 5-meal plan: $62.00 per week
• 6-meal plan: $67.98 per week
• 7-meal plan: $74.97 per week
• 8-meal plan: $82.96 per week
• 9-meal plan: $91.98 per week
• 10-meal plan: $100.00 per week
• 11-meal plan: $107.91 per week
• 12-meal plan: $114.96 per week

HelloFresh offers boxes with two- or four-person servings with the ability to choose two to six meals per week. The company's least expensive meal plan on a per serving basis is $8.99 per serving, which is four, five, or six meals per week for four people. Shipping costs extra. However, if you decide to do two meals per week for two people, you pay $12.49 per serving, plus shipping.

Bottom line: The more you order from both companies each week, the less you pay per serving.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Meal Choices

Freshly offers dozens of meal choices per week, all of which are one serving. You can choose to receive any number of meals from four to 12 each week. Freshly does a decent job of addressing dietary restrictions by including gluten-free, dairy-free, and plant-based items on the menu. Once a plan is selected, you can add the number of meals you need and can also add items from the FreshlyFit menu, which are meals that are considered “clean” and carb-conscious. The menu selection page lists calories under each option and you can click for more information regarding carbs, protein, total fat content, and ingredients.

HelloFresh offers over 60 meals on its weekly menu, plus myriad add-on options such as snacks, beverages, proteins, and desserts via HelloFresh Market. The company does not cater to a particular type of diet, but it does include at least 10 vegetarian dishes each week. HelloFresh asks for your food preferences when you subscribe, such as pescatarian, family-friendly, or meat and veggie. Then, it leaves it up to you to decide which meals may or may not fit your dietary needs.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Creativity of Dishes

Freshly’s prepared meals tend to be protein- and vegetable-centric, so if you’re calorie-conscious or following a particular gluten-free diet plan, this would be a plus. Freshly tends to showcase American Diner, Indian, Italian, Mediterranean, Tex-Mex, and Thai styles of cuisines. The dishes are usually composed of a protein, a vegetable, sometimes a grain, and a sauce to tie everything together. Sauces included honey mustard, teriyaki, salsa verde, and lemongrass flavorings. Meals are also organized by menu categories: crafted classics, signature collection, FreshlyFit, and takeout twists. For example, a crafted classic recipe may be a cauliflower shell beef Bolognese. A takeout twist could be a creamy chicken korma.

HelloFresh offers more creative and worldly choices, which tend to be more robust to create and cook. Most meals include a protein, vegetable, and a grain, like tilapia with scallion sriracha pesto over ginger rice or pork with apple dijon pan sauce with farro and wilted kale. Each week, HelloFresh showcases diverse recipes and cooking styles with nods to BBQ, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Middle Eastern, Tex-Mex, Vietnamese, and more.

If you are searching for simple, one-meal dishes with zero prep, then you may prefer Freshly’s meal service. If you have time to prepare, cook, and clean up, and you love to enjoy more creative cuisines, then HelloFresh is for you.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Flavor, Freshness, and Quality

Our testers found the flavors to be lacking overall for Freshly, and nearly all of our meals needed salt. As for seasoning, we wished there was more kick and flavor to the kale-basil pesto on our "zoodles" with turkey meatballs. Several of our meals seemed unappetizing. Our favorite meal was the tricolor beef lasagna, but the meat in that dish had a slight microwaved taste. We could barely cut through our steak peppercorn entree and we found the salsa verde pork bowl to be too watery and the meat chewy.

Meanwhile, HelloFresh had bright, bold, and interesting meals with quality ingredients. We found that nearly all of the meals we tasted had appropriate seasoning and salt, and nice acidity and brightness. For the most part, the proteins and vegetables appeared fresh and of high quality. We enjoyed the creamy lemon butter chicken with parmesan zucchini rounds and scallion couscous. The chicken was tender, the couscous was well flavored, and the zucchini was crispy. The finishing lemon cream sauce brought everything together quite nicely.

Overall, we have to give HelloFresh a higher score on flavor and freshness.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Recipe Clarity/Difficulty

It’s important to note that Freshly’s meals are designed as single-serving, microwaveable tray dinners, which are meant to be ready to eat in minutes. There is virtually no cooking or cleanup involved, and the only prep required is taking your microwaveable tray out of the paper wrapping and venting the plastic.

Most meal instructions tell you to microwave for three minutes or less, with a resting period of two minutes. However, we found that nearly all of our meals needed one more minute of cooking time to be warmed through thoroughly. Per Freshly’s website, you can also cook your meals in a skillet or oven, but the meals are primarily designed for quick heating as the cooking instructions on each meal tray only include microwave times.

HelloFresh curates delicious meals, but we often found that the prep, execution, and amount of steps, dovetailing, and cleanup outweighed the positives. Also, some of the recipe cards included proportions for two and four servings, so there were times when we got a bit confused.

Freshly’s packages that are ready to eat within minutes are much easier to execute than HelloFresh’s detail-oriented preparation and cooking.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Supporting Material

Our Freshly box included a paper printout list of our enclosed recipes. There were two QR codes on the sheet; one didn’t work and the other one directed you to rate your box. All ingredients and microwave cooking instructions are included on each meal box with a close-up photograph of the dish.

HelloFresh arrives with large, easy-to-read recipe cards, a seasonal magazine, and incentives from partners.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Types of Diets Served

Freshly’s offerings skew toward low-calorie and low-carbohydrate meals. The meals that are tagged as gluten-free meet FDA standards for carrying that label. Some of the dietary tags for each recipe include gluten-free, dairy-free, high protein, soy-free, and under 500 calories.

HelloFresh does not cater to specific diets, per se, but the company curates a diversity of meals. HelloFresh offers plenty of vegetable-based meals, and some may be free of gluten or dairy, but meals are not created to support those specific dietary needs.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Nutritional Value

Freshly is designed for people who want to eat quickly and focus on a low-carbohydrate lifestyle. We didn’t notice a ton of vegetarian options—rather, most meals included a protein and lots of vegetables. Several of the recipes each week have fewer than 500 calories a serving, so this is appealing to those who are looking to follow low-calorie diets. We did notice that most of our dinners had 8g or more of sugar and at least 20g of carbohydrates. Some recipes are branded as “FreshlyFit,” and you can expect to see a lot of cauliflower in lieu of potatoes, rice pasta, and "zoodles" (or zucchini noodles).

While HelloFresh does make low-calorie dishes, its meals tend to be heartier and higher in fat and carbohydrates. Our meals often had 30g or more of fat and 60g or more of carbs. The company focuses on fresh, inventive ingredients and dishes, rather than a specific diet or weight loss food program.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Customer Service

Freshly’s customer service includes virtual and live chat, email, and phone. We engaged with Freshly’s virtual assistant chat and when we couldn’t identify the correct answer, we were connected with a live customer service representative. All points of engagement were friendly and upbeat.

HelloFresh has chat, phone, and an online submission form for recipe or ingredient errors. We were able to connect with live chat agents and customer service representatives on the phone within minutes, and everyone we spoke to was friendly and helpful.

Freshly vs. HelloFresh: Making Changes and Canceling

When we were trying to cancel our Freshly subscription on our Settings page, we didn’t see the smaller gray print of “cancel subscription” right away, but after a few mandatory questions, we were able to easily cancel without contacting customer service.

HelloFresh will also ask you a few mandatory questions before leaving the service, but you can cancel without connecting to customer service.