EveryPlate Review: Is it the best budget-friendly meal delivery service?
Two things are relentless – rising grocery prices and the mental load of planning dinner – but there’s a surprising way to combat both.
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Dinner is hard in my house. We have 30 to 40 minutes max after we’ve finished work and daycare pick up to get something on the table or we are in for it with our toddler.
It also consumes a lot of mental energy, constantly requiring thought about meal ideas, rising grocery prices, minimising food waste and ensuring good nutrition.
Add to the mix that we all have different ideas about food – I love trying new food and flavours but my partner is a picky eater and my toddler is, well, a toddler – so it’s safe to say, I’m over it.
In short – dinner time sucks for us.
I decided to outsource the problem by trying out EveryPlate, a meal kit service that bills itself as “The Cheapest Food Delivery Service in Australia”.
Could it help ease my weeknight dinner process? Save me some cash? Make me look forward to dinner time?
It was pretty good, I have to admit – and the savings were ridiculous – but it didn’t tick every box for me.
ONE MINUTE REVIEW OF EVERYPLATE
What You Need To Know
EveryPlate is definitely worth it if you have up to an hour to cook on weeknights. It offers significant savings – it saved me $300 in a week – plenty of choice and it’s surprisingly good quality given the price.
HOW WE TESTED EVERYPLATE
We tested out the four person plan, which includes four recipes, and added on a small fruit box.
Plan was to alleviate the stress of weeknight dinners and use leftovers from each meal for an adult lunch the following day.
In this review, I’ll share my honest thoughts on the quality of the ingredients, the ease of prep and the overall value of EveryPlate.
HOW WE EVALUATED EVERYPLATE
•How much money did I save cooking EveryPlate?
•What was EveryPlate’s quality like?
•How much time does EveryPlate take to cook?
•What does EveryPlate taste like?
•Our honest verdict on EveryPlate
WHAT EVERYPLATE MEALS WE ATE
• Creamy garlic fish spaghetti with tomato and baby spinach
• Easy chicken parmi with apple salad
• Classic beef cottage pie with hidden veggies
• Sweet chilli pork stir-fry with garlic rice (we subbed in chicken for pork)
HOW MUCH MONEY DID I SAVE COOKING EVERYPLATE?
I was absolutely at the ‘throw money at it’ point before trying out EveryPlate.
But … Obviously I can’t afford a personal chef and ready meals are out for all the obvious health reasons. Plus, cost of living means we can only throw a bit of cash at it, actually.
Enter my meal kit era.
I definitely didn’t expect EveryPlate to save us as much money as it did.
Based on our usual grocery spend for four family dinners and four single lunches, EveryPlate saved us approximately $318 for a week.
Admittedly, I do have a preference for buying organic and premium ingredients whenever I can.
The rough breakdown:
• Four x lunches, poke bowl or sandwich: $18 per head = $72
• Four x dinners various, usually $35 each meal or $11.66 per head = $140
Total: $428
• EveryPlate cost $109.99 (just over $6.87 per head, per meal)
Total saving: $318.01
It’s a lot isn’t it? And it doesn’t include any impulse purchases or extras, like lunchtime drinks or afternoon snacks.
Certainly enough that I should feel inspired to start making enough food to have leftovers for lunch.
None of us are imagining the rising price of food, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics there have been year-on-year increases on essentials such as bread by up to 13 per cent, dairy by 11 per cent and meat such as pork by eight per cent.
Yes, even at Aldi and farmer’s markets.
WHAT WAS EVERYPLATE’S QUALITY LIKE?
I was sceptical about what the quality of EveryPlate meals would be like considering its affordability, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The produce in the meal kit was fresh and vibrant and even the packaged ingredients looked top-notch.
The fruit box wasn’t great though, some items – like the punnet of strawberries and some stone fruit – were very soft and needed to be eaten that day.
Another disappointment was the lack of vegetarian and overtly healthier choices in the “kid-friendly” options for the week I tested it.
HOW MUCH TIME DOES EVERYPLATE TAKE?
While EveryPlate saved me money and headspace – I didn’t have to plan four dinners or four lunches – it didn’t save me time.
The four-step recipes were simple to follow and the food was easy to make but every dish bar one – ‘creamy garlic fish spaghetti’ – took around 15 to 30 minutes longer than stated on the recipe cards.
It just wasn’t weeknight friendly.
I had to bash the chicken breasts for the ‘easy chicken parmis’ with a rolling pin, which felt like a weekend level of effort. Not easy at all.
Meanwhile, the ‘Classic beef cottage pie with hidden veggies’ took over an hour (the recipe card said 35 to 45 minutes). It was delicious, but the toddler crankiness from the delay in serving it left a bad taste.
WHAT DOES EVERYPLATE TASTE LIKE?
The flavours were simple – expected when you opt for ‘kid friendly’ – but good.
None of us particularly liked the ‘easy chicken parmi’ and a lot was leftover. Maybe my complaints about how much effort it was to make took the joy out of it, who can say?
But we all enjoyed the rest of it. I think three out of four meals hitting the spot for a picky eating adult, a toddler and a food fan is excellent.
The ‘creamy garlic fish spaghetti with tomato and baby spinach’ was the best, it tasted like a lot of effort had gone into it yet it was the easiest to make.
My toddler was such a huge fan of it that she even asked for more.
EVERYPLATE: MY HONEST VERDICT
Is EveryPlate worth it? I think for the savings it provides alone, yes.
Double, triple yes if you have some time flexibility on hectic weeknights to allow for recipe cooking time running over and if you don’t have picky eaters to cater for.
The weekly menu is bursting with options, so I found the lack of kid-friendly vegetarian options disappointing. Same goes for the inconsistent quality of the fruit box. But a $300 saving in a week makes me feel like that’s nitpicking.
I’d go back to EveryPlate again, but maybe when my daughter is older and has more patience/a later bedtime.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
HOW DOES EVERYPLATE WORK?
EveryPlate is a meal kit service that delivers weekly boxes of meals, including recipe cards and pre-measured ingredients to cook simple, familiar meals that should be ready to eat in 30 to 45 minutes.
You can choose from either two, four or six servings for three to six meals per week. You can also customise your menu and pick from different recipes each week, including several vegetarian and kid-friendly options.
IS EVERYPLATE REALLY THE CHEAPEST MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE IN AUSTRALIA?
It’s cheaper than all of the mainstream meal kits available in Australia.
According to the company, EveryPlate keeps prices low by using less packaging and opting for simple ingredients. On its site it explains it is “cheaper than supermarkets” because it cuts down on impulse spending and the breakdown of costs “per plate in each kit” is “cheaper than if you bought the same ingredients for the same number of people, at the grocery store”.
A national survey by its parent company, HelloFresh found that a third of Australians (equivalent to over 8.2 million people) blow their budget on weekly grocery shops, with over a quarter (27 per cent) overspending by between $26 and $50 every week.
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If you love a discount, make sure you stop by news.com.au Coupons. You’ll find impressive deals across categories from homewares to tech, on brands including EveryPlate, THE ICONIC and Myer.
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