The Meal Kit Index

Two box sizes at each of the five services (HelloFresh, Marley Spoon, Dinnerly, EveryPlate and QuiteLike): 3 meals for 2 people and 4 meals for 4. Each counts equally. I use the price of a serve, one meal for one person, with delivery included. The monthly download also has an index without delivery.

Each month I work out how much each service's price for a serve changed, for the box sizes it sold in both months, then average across the services. Technically it is a chained geometric mean of log changes. The index starts at 100 in January 2020; the charts compare quarters, so there the January–March 2020 average is 0, the starting point. A new service or box size starts counting the month after I first price it, so its arrival doesn't move the index. I first priced EveryPlate in July 2020 and QuiteLike in January 2023.

The regular price an ongoing customer pays, not first-box or voucher discounts. New customers usually pay much less in their first weeks.

Each service's own pricing pages, as archived month by month by the Internet Archive; the services' own price tables and announcements; my dated price checks; and my reviews and price trackers where nothing else exists. Every price is tied to a dated source.

The ABS Consumer Price Index (CPI), original series, for Australia, from the ABS Data API. The charts use the ABS quarterly figures, rescaled so January–March 2020 equals 100, and meal kit quarters average their three months. The 12-month figures at the top use the ABS monthly CPI, to September 2026. My meal kit prices run further, to November 2026 (rose 4.3% on a year earlier), but there's no ABS figure for that month yet, so the comparisons stop at September 2026.

Five ABS CPI food groups, combined using the CPI's own weights for the December quarter 2024 throughout: meat and seafood (23.5%), fruit and vegetables (22.4%), bread and cereals (17.2%), dairy (11.8%) and other food (25.1%). I built this series from ABS figures; the ABS doesn't publish it. I don't use the ABS "food" group because 41% of it is eating out. Eating out is the ABS "Meals out and take away foods" group.

The CPI records what households actually pay, specials included. This index uses regular prices. Both track ongoing prices over time, so the comparison is fair, but they are not the same measure. The ABS does not treat the CPI as a cost-of-living measure.

Food Box Mate may earn a commission when you sign up to some of these services. That has no effect on the prices recorded here, which come from dated public sources.

Every month, after my price check and each ABS CPI release. Inflation figures last downloaded 14 November 2026. Next update after the ABS releases its October 2026 figures.