Officially distributing throughout the East Coast, grocery delivery service Hello Fresh offers fresh ingredients, simple recipes, affordable noncommittal pricing, and one hell of a way to make home cooking for the busy bee easy again.
Short Order recently took the service out for a test run.
Our conclusion: You'll never set foot in a grocery store again. What's the fun in that, you say?
Convenience is a beautiful thing.
Think about the time you could save by not having to shop anymore (and not having to be tempted by the snack aisle). Hello Fresh is every busy professional's saving grace.
Natural meats and seasonal vegetables are sourced from "the best butcher and best produce purveyor in Philly," says Hello Fresh CEO (and Short Order alumnus) Daniel Treiman. "We started in Europe and came to the U.S. We're now in six countries and growing."
To test it out, Short Order received a clima-cool box with three meals' worth of ingredients. Each meal is proportioned to feed two, so if you live alone and use the service, consider your lunch and dinner covered for at least three days.
Each meal comes with the exact amount of everything you need for the recipe plus a nifty dummy-proof recipe card. Everything is labeled clearly, the instructions on the recipe card are so easy a caveman's dog could do it, and the meals we had were quite delicious.
You chop, dice, steam, bake, and do absolutely everything. Nothing is done for you except the measuring and the shopping.
After about 35 minutes, a homemade, fresh, and satisfyingly healthful dinner was ready. We ended up taking the second portion to the office for lunch the next day.
So far, the small company's clientele has varied, but "we have busy professionals in big cities to families in suburbs. We send unique ingredients, so it's helpful to people without quick access to specialty stores who want to cook other types of cuisine," Treiman says.
So, in other words, no more Hamburger Helper, Miami.
Hello Fresh offers a subscription service that you can pause any time. There's no minimum duration required, and prices start at $69 per week for three meals for two people (or six meals for one person). A vegetarian program was recently launched as well. Shipping is included.
To be honest, we were skeptical of the service before we tried it. But the convenience of having everything delivered and ready for you to whip up can't be beat. Pair that with the amount of money you would save by taking leftovers for lunch instead of eating out, and you'd be saving a great deal. And if you have someone to split the meals and $69 cost with, it's an even better deal.
Visit hellofresh.com for more info.
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