I discovered HelloFresh during my recent business trip to Sydney in November. 

I've seen several of these types of food delivery services popping up on my radar all around the world, and while I'm still sitting on the fence about whether I myself would commit to such a subscription, I can see the benefits of food delivery subscription services. 

My colleague W gets three recipes and fresh quality ingredients delivered to her apartment each week. Each recipe is easy to read with clear visual instructions. Each recipe comes with ingredients for two servings, so W can share with her flatmate or take the rest for lunch the next day. W's plan costs her AU$60 a week, for three recipes and six servings in total. That's basically AU$10 per person, which is reasonable and definitely healthier than getting takeaways all the time, which has the tendency to be losing its freshness and/or being too salty. 

HelloFresh started out in Germany and is so far available in mostly European countries, the US where they compete directly with BlueApron, a similar company that some of my American friends use, and Australia. It's not available in NZ yet, but in NZ we already have our equivalents, as well. 

The most famous is My Food Bag, with NZ celebrity chef Nadia Lim as its head chef. My Food Bag has a similar concept to HelloFresh, and the 3 meals option for its My Classic Food Bag would also be around NZ$10 per person. 

W loves that she saves time on meal planning and grocery shopping for her dinners and left over lunches. It's not easy coming home after a long day at work to have nothing in the fridge and not knowing what to eat for the night. 

I also think it'll be handy for university students to use such subscription services to get into the habit of cooking at home. Cooking quality meals, and meals that they could turn into go to recipes. While students have the time but lack money, I think this could be a great Christmas gift for student friends around us. My younger sister just finished university, but unfortunately she did not learn much cooking skills during her uni days. Perhaps when she decides where she will settle down for her first job, this will be my gift for her. 

As for myself, I enjoy the time to plan, shop and cook meals for the week with A. It's become a weekly ritual for us, and for our current situation, this is perfect. Maybe in the future when I am a working mother with multiple kids, this may change. We spend on average $7 per meal per person, so for the moment this is a good solution for us. We do get a helping hand from My Food Bag, still, though. Bringing in variety into our meal plans can mean a lot of research. My Food Bag's cookbook is a great help in that department, even if we don't get our ingredients directly from them. 

Have you tried a food delivery service, like HelloFresh, BlueApron, and My Food Bag? What are your thoughts?