6 Best HelloFresh Alternatives in Australia

HelloFresh are well known as the most popular meal kit in Australia, which is clearly backed up by our research – 82% of meal kit users tried HelloFresh in 2022. They’re also our highest rated meal kit, scoring an impressive 8.6 / 10 in our independent review.

However, as a regular consumer of meal delivery services, I recognise that HelloFresh simply isn’t perfect for everyone. In particular, they suffer from high delivery costs, recipes can be quite complex and their add-ons can quickly add up to an expensive weekly shop. They also featured nowhere near the top of our investigation of the cheapest meal kits in Australia.

Therefore, I want to share with you the best HelloFresh alternatives available in Australia.

Top HelloFresh Competitors

Types of Meal Delivery Service

When considering a new alternative to HelloFresh, it’s important to start by thinking whether your top priority is having fresh, home cooked meals.

Meal Kits

Meal Kits are a fantastic opportunity to learn new cooking skills, discover new ingredients, and generally explore the world of food.

All the services available in Australia offer a weekly selection of different meals, delivering all the ingredients to your house with associated recipes. All the ingredients are ready to use and in the right quantity so you can eliminate food waste almost entirely.

Prepared Meals

In contrast, if your priority instead is convenience then it’s worth giving Prepared Meals services a try. These services deliver fresh (or frozen) fully prepared meals to your front door, meaning you can just chuck your dinner in the microwave for a few minutes and eat straight away.

Perfect for anyone who finds themselves with limited time in the evening or hates cooking. Want to know more? We have an awesome guide covering the best 8 meal delivery services in Australia.

Now, on to the best alternatives to HelloFresh.

Marley Spoon – Most Similar to HelloFresh

Type: Meal Kit

The most similar service to HelloFresh in Australia is definitely Marley Spoon. This makes them the best direct alternative if you’re getting a bit tired of the HelloFresh meals.

What makes them different? Well, Marley Spoon offer a much wider variety of meals every week with 27 available. This makes them much more suitable for anyone with a restricted diet (vegan, vegetarian, gluten free etc.) or anyone who just wants to explore more variety each week.. They also have a lower delivery cost to most areas albeit with a more limited delivery network.

The overall quality of Marley Spoon’s service and meals are very similar to HelloFresh, leaving it very much down to personal preference which one you like more.

Cost: 2 People / 3 Meals at $67.50 _{+ Shipping}. 4 People / 5 Meals at $170.00 _{+ Shipping}

Delivers To: Most Eastern Metro locations with limited service to regional areas

Best For: Special diets, calorie control, picky eaters.

Get up to $190 off Marley Spoon across your first 6 boxesOffer available to new customers only, redeemed by clicking on this link

My Muscle Chef – Delicious No Prep Meals

Type: Prepared Meals

Maybe HelloFresh wasn’t right for you because needing to cook every night simply took too long, or you’re looking for a backup when you don’t feel like cooking. In these scenarios, having some prepared meals in the fridge is always a great option.

We highly recommend giving My Muscle Chef a try. Despite the name, they aren’t just for ‘muscle’-heads who hit the gym every day. Their menu offers a wide range of 50+ meals that allow you to choose calorie/carb amounts that suit your dietary needs.

The main reason we recommend My Muscle Chef is because most of their meals taste amazing. In my opinion, they are on par with the kind of taste you get from HelloFresh meals, without any of the hassle cooking!

Cost: Individual meals cost between $9.55 – $11.40 _{+ Shipping}.

Delivers To: Over 4,200 postcodes across Australia, including all major towns and cities

Best For: Saying “this is too good to be a microwave meal”, meeting fitness goals.

Get Up To $120 Off Your First 6 My Muscle Chef OrdersClick this link and use code SAVE120

EveryPlate – Affordable and Simple

Type: Meal Kit

EveryPlate really are the cheaper version of HelloFresh, as they are both run by the same company. The differences are apparent in the recipes and variety available, with EveryPlate offering fewer meals each week that are limited to 6-8 ingredients.

However, all this has two major benefits. First, EveryPlate comes in at over 30% cheaper for the same overall quantity of food which makes it an incredible bargain. Second, the simpler recipes are quicker to cook and easier to get family members (kids especially) to help out. This all means you can generally have food on the table within 40 minutes.

EveryPlate only launched in Australia in late 2020 and they are continually updating their offering. Since then, they have added 3 vegetarian meals per week which helps add some much-needed variety to their weekly menu.

Cost: 2 People / 3 Meals at $41.94 _{+ Shipping}. 4 People / 5 Meals at $111.80 _{+ Shipping}

Delivers To: Most major metropolitan and rural areas in NSW, VIC, ACT and QLD.

Best For: Budget conscious, simple family meals.

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Dinnerly – Simple Family Meals

Type: Meal Kit

Dinnerly provide a very similar service to the previously-mentioned EveryPlate, offering prices that are over 30% cheaper than HelloFresh. There’s no doubt Dinnerly provides fantastic value.

Think comforting, simple home-cooked meals on the table within 30 – 40 minutes. A lot of Dinnerly menus are one-pot cooks which make them very easy to make on a weeknight, especially with a busy family life. With less complex or unusual flavours, I find that Dinnerly meals are fantastic for picky eaters as well.

One major point of contention is that Dinnerly don’t provide recipe cards with their delivery. To access the recipes, you need to use their mobile app or their website. Some people find this to be a real dealbreaker, however I have always been able to get on just fine with their mobile recipes.

Cost: 2 People / 3 Meals at $43.50 _{+ Shipping}. 4 People / 5 Meals at $105.00 _{+ Shipping}

Delivers To: Most major metropolitan and rural areas across Australia, with no additional charge for regional areas.

Best For: A balance of price, quality and variety. Great for families and cooking with kids.

Check out Dinnerly with a $145 discountGet up to $145 off across your first 5 boxes with our unique discount link

Lite n Easy – Healthy, Calorie Controlled Meals

Type: Prepared Meals

This a slightly left-field alternative to HelloFresh, designed for anyone who’s looking for calorie-controlled portions to support their dietary goals. Lite n Easy is a community of dieters who rely on their weekly delivery of Lite n Easy prepared meals.

Convenience is incredibly important when you’re on a calorie-controlled diet as it stops those impulses dead in their tracks. It’s very easy to get a takeaway if the alternative is cooking for 30-40 minutes, but it’s much more difficult when your meal needs just a few minutes in the microwave to be ready to eat.

Lite n Easy offers 1200, 1500 and 1800 calories plans to suit every dieter, with an incredible community of users who can help when times get tough. Whilst they aren’t a strict alternative to HelloFresh, it’s definitely worth considering Lite n Easy if weight loss is a major goals for you.

Cost: 10 Meals are $11.40 each (_+Shipping) and 21 Meals are just $10.40 each (_+Shipping)

Delivers To: 24-hour delivery to most places in Australia.

Best For: Weight Loss

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Making the most of HelloFresh

There are plenty of reasons you might want to move away from HelloFresh, although it’s also worth considering whether some minor changes to approach might make HelloFresh work for you.

HelloFresh for Singles – With meals being delivered for 2 or 4 people, it’s easy to be discouraged if you’re only cooking for yourself. However, I have found this to always be super helpful for meal kits as you can get away with cooking half as much. How? By making sure you’re cooking meals only once and reheating them for the next evening. Check out my article on the best meal kits for singles for more help on the best ways to do this.

Ingredient Problems – Unfortunately, fresh ingredients are tricky things to manage at large scale for companies like HelloFresh. The trick is to be aware of this and treat every ingredient with the respect it deserves. Get your meat and veggies in the fridge as quickly as possible, store the herbs right and use a cupboard/pantry that doesn’t get too warm. Discover my top tips for looking after meal kit ingredients.

Too Expensive – We can all tell that HelloFresh is more expensive than grocery shopping, with our research showing that it’s roughly 30% more costly. Over the course of an entire year, this can add up to a significant amount of dollars. To save some money, we highly recommend using our Meal Kit Method that could save you over $1500 a year whilst still getting meal kits delivered every week. This method simply takes advantage of the regular offers that each meal kit service offers to existing customer.

Get onto Live Chat – I’ve had very few problems using HelloFresh, but there was one time when my salmon didn’t turn up! It was a fairly crucial element to the dish, so it was very disappointing not to receive the salmon in my delivery. By going onto the HelloFresh Live Chat system, I had a $10 credit on my account within 5 minutes and I was able to nip to the shops and get some new salmon fillets. It’s not ideal, but if you’re not happy with any ingredients then make sure to jump on live chat with HelloFresh!

After all that, if you’re still not happy with the service HelloFresh is providing then we guide you on exactly how to cancel HelloFresh.

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