In August 2020, Australia saw a rare new entrant to the meal kit market. With a relatively small selection of services available in Australia (compared to other countries), it’s fantastic news for us consumers to see a new company competing to deliver us fresh and tasty ingredients.
However, you shouldn’t confuse EveryPlate with a small start-up business. Instead, they’re fully owned and operated by a long-time Food Box Mate favourite – HelloFresh! With a solid reputation in the USA, this EveryPlate review will see how they stack up against their Aussie competitors.
EveryPlate Meal Kit Review
EveryPlate Review Summary
EveryPlate are the new kids on the block, although they provide a polished meal kit experience thanks to their parent company, HelloFresh. You won’t be disappointed with your ingredient quality and the tasty dishes you can create, for a very cheap price.
Overall
-
Ordering - Website - 9/10
9/10
-
Food - Quality - 8/10
8/10
-
Ordering - Meal Choice - 6.5/10
6.5/10
-
Food - Taste - 6/10
6/10
-
Ordering - Delivery - 7/10
7/10
-
Value For Money - 10/10
10/10
Pros
- Exceptional value.
- Tasty dishes.
- Good delivery slots.
Cons
- Limited vegetarian options.
- Smaller portion sizes.
EveryPlate has been launched as a very clear and direct competitor to Dinnerly, who themselves are owned by Marley Spoon. Taking aim at the ‘budget’ end of the meal kit market, both companies deliver a simplified service at a low cost. The differences? Check out our EveryPlate vs Dinnerly comparison.
EveryPlate initially delivered only to major metropolitan areas across the East Coast, however this has expanded in recent months to include a vast majority of:
- New South Wales
- Victoria
- Australian Capital Territory
- Queensland
- South Australia
- Western Australia
HelloFresh actually delivers to NT as well, so hopefully EveryPlate will continue to expand their delivery network in the coming months!
Contents
Getting Started with EveryPlate
As you’d expect from a polished international outfit, the EveryPlate website is slick and seamless. This makes it really easy to “Get Started”.
Just like every other meal kit, you are signing up for a weekly delivery but this has no commitment. You’re able to cancel easily, online, at any time. However, keep in mind you need to do this at least a week before your delivery. To make things easier, the EveryPlate website makes the deadline clear on your order.
One issue I have is when they ask for your personal details before showing you that week’s menu. Fortunately, I have a workaround for you! You can view the menu up to 4 weeks in advance on their website.
Meal Options Available
When I first reviewed EveryPlate, they were only offering 8 meal choices each week. Now, you’ll find a massive 20 – 22 recipes every week. Whilst that’s significantly fewer than their budget meal kit competitors Dinnerly, it’s plenty to keep you entertained with recipes you enjoy every week.
Each week, there are also a few premium meal options that come with a $2.99 surcharge per serving. So, if saving money is your primary objective then you’ll be limited by a few recipes.
There tend to be around 6 different vegetarian meals each week, which means that EveryPlate is suitable for anyone on a plant-based diet. It’s still a relatively small selection, especially if you want 4 or 5 meals, which doesn’t give you a lot of choices.
I also noticed that recipes are re-appearing in the rotation every 4-5 weeks. Whilst it’s definitely a great thing when your favourite meals are offered again, this seems to point towards a relatively small set of overall recipes. I’ve noticed that this has been improving over time, so expect that getting bored of EveryPlate will soon be a thing of the past.
Some of the options available when I ordered included:
- Sweet Chilli Chicken Stir Fry
- Mexican Beef Tacos
- Cheesy Bacon Penne
- Creamy Lentil Dhal
EveryPlate are one of the very few meal kit companies to offer a 6-person meal kit as well as offering 6 meals per week on all their different plans. That means EveryPlate will be fantastic for large families or people who depend on deliveries for every meal.
Customise your recipes
EveryPlate have recently added a feature similar to HelloFresh, where you can choose to customise your recipes. This allows you to make some simple changes to meals to suit your own needs, at a small additional cost. Changes you can make include:
- Increase the amount of protein source (e.g double chicken)
- Change from sweet potato to white potato
- Upgrade your protein source (e.g beef mince to beef rump)
- Add meat to vegetarian meals
- Add extra vegetables.
I’m a big supporter of this, as it allows EveryPlate to keep costs low for a majority of customers. As a customer, it also means I can easily adjust recipes to better suit your tastes. This only leaves me wanting more customisation of recipes. Most recipes don’t have any additional options, which I’m hoping EveryPlate will continue to improve.
Delivery Options
Each week, EveryPlate offer delivery days from Saturday to Wednesday with either a 12:00 – 07:00 or 09:00 – 18:00 delivery window. This is quite an impressive variety of times and they should suit most households.
For anyone worried about those overnight slots, they can actually be super handy. The box is designed to keep your food chilled for up to 8 hours, so there’s no worries about your food spoiling. I’d always advise overnight delivery to any house where you can get a box delivered “out of sight”.
The slots available to you will depend on your postcode, so it’s definitely worth checking your options out. I have a really strong variety of options here in Sydney.
How much does EveryPlate Cost?
EveryPlate are competing as a low cost meal kit, so no EveryPlate review is complete without analysing the price you’ll need to pay.
I’ve talked about EveryPlate competing directly with Dinnerly, which means battling over providing the cheapest meal kit. To make it easier for you, here’s how the two companies compare on price for various boxes:
| People | Meals | EveryPlate | Dinnerly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 3 | $48.00 | $50.94 |
| 2 | 4 | $60.00 | $63.92 |
| 2 | 5 | $70.00 | $74.90 |
| 4 | 3 | $80.00 | $83.88 |
| 4 | 4 | $100.00 | $107.04 |
| 4 | 5 | $120.00 | $129.80 |
EveryPlate comes in a couple of dollars cheaper than Dinnerly across all options, easily making them the best value meal kit in Australia. This is after they reduced their prices considerably, making it the perfect time to start a new EveryPlate subscription.
Unfortunately, shipping/delivery isn’t free and you’ll be charged a flat rate of $9.99 each box. This isn’t impacted by how many meals you order, so it can be more economical to order as many meals as possible.
EveryPlate also have their ‘larger box’ offerings that Dinnerly don’t offer, so here are your costs for those:
| People | Meals | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 6 | $80.00 |
| 4 | 6 | $130.00 |
| 6 | 3 | $105.00 |
| 6 | 4 | $130.00 |
| 6 | 5 | $150.00 |
| 6 | 6 | $160.00 |
EveryPlate recently fixed a gap in their pricing where the same amount of ‘portions’ cost different prices, as well as standardising their pricing with rounded numbers that are easier to understand.
When trying to make meal kits last for 5-6 nights, it’s definitely worth following my tips and tricks for making your ingredients last longer.
My EveryPlate Review Box
I’ve had EveryPlate delivered multiple times now and have never had any problems getting my boxes delivered on time. I always receive a text informing me of the delivery time so I can grab it without leaving it outside for too long.
As you can see, the branding is quite subtle on the box. I actually quite like this more refined look, although of course it’s what you find inside that is more important!
For this review, I opted for a 2 person, 5 meal box so I could really test ingredient quality, portion size and a variety of different meals. This means my box was absolutely packed full of ingredients – including the meat/dairy in a dividing container.
One of the first things you’ll notice is that all the ingredients are simply thrown together in the box. This is part of their cost-saving measures, although it does make it somewhat challenging to find the right ingredients (and quantities) out of so many to dig through.
My initial inspection of the ingredients was very promising, with all the leaves / herbs / vegetables in good condition. All the onions, carrots and zucchinis were a good size. None of the products had super urgent ‘use by’ dates.
I found it super interesting that EveryPlate have decided to offer recipe cards. If you like to have physical cards to follow, this is definitely a big selling point over Dinnerly.
How’s The Food?
I ordered a variety of different meal types and protein types to give them all a try. When trying each meal for this EveryPlate review, I’m mainly thinking about three primary factors: Cooking, Taste, and Portion Size.
Cooking
When you’re relying on a recipe card, you really want the instructions to be as clear as possible. In general, I did find the EveryPlate instructions quite easy to follow. The recipe cards are quite small, so unfortunately there are some times where they’ve clearly cut down on instructions to fit on the page. I did mess up the Middle Eastern Beef Meatballs, but I put that more down to user error (rushing) instead of any issues with instructions.
Taste
Each meal I tried was very tasty, thanks to the clever use of herbs and spices in each meal. Like HelloFresh, EveryPlate try and provide a great meal experience through the use of ingredients/techniques that you may not usually go to the effort for at home. Even the really basic meals, like Cheesy Penne Pasta, were delicious and avoided the pitfalls of being too rich or too bland.
Portion Sizes
Full disclaimer that I’m a guy who’s heavily into fitness and sports, so my natural portion sizes do tend to be on the larger size. However, I found EveryPlate to be consistently on the smaller side. For each ‘2 person’ meal I was eating 75% of the food which does slightly erode the cash savings you make. Even the remaining food was only enough for a small lunch the next day. If you’re used to smaller portion sizes, or you have younger children then you won’t have any problems.
Dishes I Loved
- Mexican Beef Tacos
- Creamy Lentil Dhal
- Middle Eastern Beef Meatballs
Dishes I Wouldn’t Recommend
- None!
A particular shout-out to the couscous with the Middle Eastern Beef Meatballs that was cooked with Grated Carrot, Butter and a Stock cube. Absolutely delicious!
What isn’t included?
As is standard with all meal kit delivery services, EveryPlate ask that you provide some standard ‘pantry‘ ingredients alongside their provided kits. These are the ingredients that they might ask you to have:
Sauces & Condiments
- Soy Sauce
- Honey
- Mayonnaise
Other Ingredients
- Plain Flour
- Brown Sugar
- Salt & Pepper
- Egg
- Butter
- Milk
Oils & Vinegars
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Red Wine Vinegar
- White Wine Vinegar
- Olive Oil
I always recommend checking your recipes before your box arrives so you can make sure you have all your staple ingredients available.
EveryPlate Ingredients
The EveryPlate website has a fantastic feature that provides ‘country of origin’ information for every ingredient used in their recipes. It’s heartening to review that a vast majority of ingredients are sourced from Australia, including all the meat. You can check out all the information on their Food Info page.
EveryPlate Mobile App
When they first launched EveryPlate, there wasn’t a mobile app available, so you needed to manage your subscription on the website. Thankfully, that has now changed as EveryPlate made their app available in Australia. This has some great features, including:
- Selecting your meals each week.
- Adjusting or skipping deliveries.
- Accessing all your past/current/future recipes.
- Changing delivery or payment methods.
The only thing missing is cancelling your subscription. You’ll need to do this on EveryPlate’s website, which is quite frustrating.
Australian Meal Kit Survey 2022
EveryPlate was the winner of 1 category in our recent meal delivery service survey in Australia. Based on their pricing strategy, EveryPlate expectedly won the prize for best value for money meal kit, narrowly beating Dinnerly into 2nd place.
My Overall Thoughts
At the price you can get meals (find out the current ‘FBM Reader’ discount amount), EveryPlate represents fantastic value. They’re definitely providing a comparable service to Dinnerly, excelling when it comes to serving flavourful meals.
For anyone who enjoys using other meal kits or wants to save some money, you should definitely consider spending a few weeks using EveryPlate.
The meals can be a bit basic, with relatively small portion sizes but those are the only small complaints I have about EveryPlate. The overall service is fantastic and I have absolutely no problem recommending them.
The meals are very easy to cook, so it’s even a great opportunity to get the whole family involved.
I’d love to hear about other people’s experiences with EveryPlate – were they similar to mine? Did you find my EveryPlate review useful? Let me know in the comments section below!
