If 2023 is going to be your year to “eat more healthily” but you’re low on inspiration and time to make it happen, you could try a food delivery box.
As well as being good for you and saving you a lot of time and stress, shopping in this way (where you avoid spontaneous supermarket trips and only buy what you will definitely eat) can also save an astonishing amount of waste.
In the UK we currently throw away an astonishing 9.5 million tonnes of food waste every year. That’s the equivalent of over 15 billion meals – enough to feed the ENTIRE UK population three meals a day for 11 weeks!
From sustainable recipe boxes and zero waste groceries to organic fruit and veg, here are our top eight food delivery boxes:
1. All Plants
With All Plants, a certified B-Corp, you have more than 100 nourishing, meat-free recipes to choose from. You just pick a serving size and fill your box with as many meals as you like. Boxes are delivered on either a Tuesday or a Saturday by carbon-neutral courier DPD. You can return any packaging to All Plants for free so it can be used over and over again.
The nutritionally-balanced dishes, which each contain at least two of your five-a-day, are ready made (they’re flash frozen after being cooked fresh) and can be heated up in the microwave in minutes. You can change, pause or cancel your subscription at any time.
A big plus of All Plants is that it can cater for single people, which many similar services can’t.
What’s the cost?
Dishes start from £4.99 for a main meal. The minimum order is £25, and you’ll need to spend over £40 to get free delivery (which otherwise is £4.99).
2. Dizzie
Dizzie (formerly Good Club) is an online ‘zero waste’ grocery store focused on delivering healthy, organic and sustainable food and household items directly to your door at wholesale prices. By joining Dizzie, you get access to more than 2,000 sustainable brands. All products come in reusable packaging.
Dizzie provides carbon-neutral delivery with DPD and you can either decant the products and return the packaging straight away, or send it back with your next delivery. Since it was founded in 2019, Dizzie claims to have saved almost 1.2 million pieces of plastic from being used and more than 147,000 kgs of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
What’s the cost?
Members pay £2.50 per month with one free delivery per month.
3. Green Chef
Green Chef offers “30 delicious and affordable recipes that change with every week” to suit almost any lifestyle – such as Keto, Paleo, Gluten Free, Fast and Fit, Mediterranean, Vegan and Vegetarian. If you live with someone who has a different preference, you can combine choices in one weekly box.
Green Chef is a USDA certified organic company. It works with farmers to source sustainable, delicious ingredients. The company also offsets 100 per cent of its operational and distribution-related carbon emissions, as well as 100 per cent of its in-box plastic waste.
What’s the cost?
The cost per serving varies depending how many meals you add to your box and how many people you are serving. This ranges from £4.70 per serving for four meals for four people to £5.95 per serving for three meals for two people a week. Delivery is £3.99.
Green Chef offers discounts for key workers such as nurses, teachers, police and military personnel.
Get 40 per cent off your first two boxes plus 25 per cent off your next two boxes! Use the code GREENCHEFAFF
4. HelloFresh
HelloFresh was masterminded by chef Patrick Drake, formerly of the prestigious Fat Duck restaurant, who wanted to help people cook delicious, hassle-free recipes at home. He started writing recipes and sending them out from his house. HelloFresh now offers variations of boxes such as ‘mostly meat’, ‘veggie’ and ‘family’ and ‘quick cook’ and ‘calorie smart’ options. It offers around 44 new recipes each week with a focus on fresh ingredients, simple cooking methods, and bold flavours. Because of reduced food miles, HelloFresh says its meals create 25 per cent fewer carbon emissions than the same meals made from supermarket ingredients.
What’s the cost?
You can choose whether to get three, four or five recipes per week, and whether to serve two, three or four people. As with Green Chef, the cost per serving varies depending how many meals you add to your box and how many people you are serving. For example, three meals to serve two people works out at £4.50 per serving, whereas five recipes to serve four is £3.25 per serving.
Get 60 per cent off your first box plus 25 per cent off for two months, plus free gifts! Use code HELLO60AFF
5. Abel & Cole
Abel & Cole has been in the business for over 30 years, knows a thing or two about sustainable food and drink delivery. The much-loved brand offers a variety of boxes filled with fruit and veg, drinks, meat and fish dairy and/or vegan products. All boxes contain only organic produce from British farms.
The origin of each product is listed in the box, so you can see how you’re supporting small, local farms. There are numerous boxes to choose from, varying in size and selection – all delivered to your door in recyclable packaging.
Abel & Cole offers a ‘Zero Hero’ service, where you can save money by using refillable pots.
What’s the cost?
Prices vary. Some examples are £13.40 for a fruit bowl box, £17.70 for a medium ‘very veggie’ box, £4.95 for organic hot dogs and £17.50 for a meat and fish box.
6. Oddbox
On a mission to cut food waste, OddBox works closely with farmers to rescue ‘wonky’ (but perfectly delicious) seasonal fruit and vegetables that are at risk of going to landfill due to minor imperfections. This not only reduces food waste, it saves carbon dioxide emissions and unnecessary water use.
The subscription box company also donates 10 percent of its produce to charity, including food redistribution charity City Harvest. Some boxes contain both fruit and veg, others just one, with a variety of sizes to choose from including boxes to suit individuals, couples and families.
What does it cost?
A small fruit and veg box, with seven varieties of veg and three of fruit, costs £13.99. A large box with nine varieties of veg and four of fruit is £21.49.
7. Mindful Chef
Mindful Chef, which became the first recipe box to become a B-Corp firm, delivers fresh vegan dinner recipes with ethically-sourced ingredients straight to your door.
It operates a zero per cent food waste model by going straight to the supplier and only ordering exactly what its customers need every week. Every ingredient is pre-portioned into the exact amount required for your meal so you won’t end up throwing away any wilted bags of veg at the end of the week. Mindful Chef also works with the charity One Feeds Two to fund school meals for children in poverty.
Mindful Chef offers boxes containing two to five recipes for one to four people.
What does it cost?
A two person box costs £7 per portion, and a one person box (like All Plants above, the one person offering is a big pro) is £9 per portion.
8. Gousto
Gousto provides delicious dinners with easy-to-follow recipes (including options from personal fitness favourite Joe Wicks) and precisely-measured ingredients, delivered to your door. The company is a certified B-Corp, which means that it meets – and is committed to maintaining – the highest social and environmental standards.
A weekly Gousto box has been found to cut your carbon emissions by an impressive 23 per cent compared to buying the same shop at a traditional supermarket. Gousto keeps food waste down (to see less than one per cent) by using AI forecasting to predict its weekly order volumes, and it donates any leftover fresh food to the charity FareShare, which redistributes it to people in need.
What does it cost?
A regular box (for two adults or one adult and one to two children) with four recipes costs £34.99, which works out at £4.37 per portion. A large box for four adults or two adults and two to three children is £50.25, which is £3.14 per portion.
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