HelloFresh vs Goodfood Meal Kit Comparison

As a Goodfood subscriber since 2018, I have had a good experience overall and have had no reason to look elsewhere. However, several of my friends subscribe to and have recommended HelloFresh, so I figured it was worth giving HelloFresh a try and see how it compares to Goodfood – especially considering it’s available for $50 off the first box.

Here is my experience and findings:

What are HelloFresh and Goodfood?

HelloFresh and Goodfood are two of the most popular meal kit delivery services in Canada. HelloFresh is based in Germany is the world’s leading meal kit service – delivering meals in 13 countries including Canada. Goodfood is Canada’s #1 meal kit and was founded and is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec.

You subscribe on their website, choose your meals from their options and every week they send them right to your door. No meal planning, grocery shopping or wondering what’s for dinner.

Availability

HelloFresh delivers to every province across Canada (they claim they can serve 95% of the population), while Goodfood delivers in every province except Newfoundland. However, this does not mean they serve every town and city. If you’re in doubt, contact them to confirm if they serve your area and report back by leaving a comment.

Plans and pricing comparison

As you can see below, Goodfood is slightly cheaper than HelloFresh across the board. While most of the plans are a few cents off from each other, the 4 meals for 2 people plan is somehow over a dollar cheaper per serving.

In addition, while free in during the initial promotional period, HelloFresh’s delivery is $9.99 per box, while Goodfood’s delivery has been free for us since we started with the service in 2018. It is listed as $5.99 on the invoice but discounted to $0.

Lastly, there doesn’t seem to be any pricing differences between HelloFresh’s Pronto, Family and Veggie plans, which you’d think there’d be considering some included meat and others don’t. Compare that to Goodfood where 3 meals for 2 people of the Classic Basket (includes meat) costs $11.16 per serving, while the vegetarian version is a dollar cheaper at $10.13 per serving.

The prices below are for services’ very similar Classic and Pronto plans:

Winner: Goodfood

Variety

Both of their recipes span many different cuisines including Mexican, Lebanese, Indian, Greek, Australian, American, Korean, Italian and French as well as unique fusion creations that sit somewhere between these definitions such as HelloFresh’s Moo Shu Pork Tacos with Stir-Fried Veggies and Sriracha Mayo or Goodfood’s hybrid dish Crispy Shrimp Tacos with Kimchi Mayo and French Radish Salad.

Goodfood offers a huge selection of ready-to-eat, breakfast and grocery items on top of their regular meal choices that can be added to your box with the click of a button. HelloFresh offers garlic bread as an add-on. While these options are convenient (and tempting), I don’t see them as “core” to a meal kit service’s offerings.

HelloFresh offers 22 meal options to choose from every week compared to “18” by Goodfood. Though those are split between different plans and pricing levels: 7, 7, 6 and 3, so they have at most 7 to pick from each week if you want to stick to a single price point.

While Goodfood seems like it can be a bit more adventurous and experimental with its dishes, HelloFresh has the most flexibility each week thanks to the volume of options.

Winner: HelloFresh

Convenience

Both have an easy-to-use website that allow you to select meals up to 4 weeks in advance, add additional portions or meals and you can skip a week or more at the click of a button at any time up to midnight on the Wednesday the week before your next delivery. If you don’t want to have to log in and choose, they have meals selected by default based on customer satisfaction and feedback if you’ve left reviews.

Their recipe cards are clear and easy to follow with quality photos of each step.

Goodfood’s meal prep times range from 15 to 35 minutes which are accurate for the most part, but can take longer if a recipe recommends using the same pot or pan for 2 or more stages of cooking. Tradeoffs can be made to reduce prep time (but increase dishes dirtied) or reduce dirty dishes (and increase prep time).

We also found that a few recipes could be simplified while not materially affecting the taste or appearance of the end result. For example, cooking all vegetables that along with the rest in the pan instead of roasting some separately in the oven.

Goodfood offered more delivery days in our area. Changes for the next week’s Thursday and Friday deliveries can be made later than HelloFresh – up to Saturdays before 11:59pm (EST).

HelloFresh’s meal prep times range from an estimated 20 to 40 minutes which we found to be accurate (not counting the time waiting for the oven to heat up). While the prep times are similar, they are slightly simpler and easier to make than Goodfood and a lot of it is spent waiting for things to cook (which frees up time to wash dishes or tidy up!).

They also have an app that allows you to pick your next meals and follow their recipes while on-the-go and allows you to select 5 weeks in advance (one more than Goodfood).

Winner: HelloFresh

Packaging

Both include quite a bit of packaging. While this may seem bad for the environment, these meal kits can involve up to 33% less greenhouse gas emissions than grocery store meals thanks to right-sizing ingredients and fewer individual trips to the grocery store.

Goodfood box and insulation inserts are thicker which likely keeps the food colder longer while in the delivery process.

The bag around each meal is plastic which doesn’t look as environmentally friendly compared to HelloFresh’s brown paper bag, but we found that once you look inside, there is less pre-packaging of individual ingredients. Green onions, lettuce, sweet potatoes and corn on the cob are all just placed together into the meal bag.

HelloFresh’s ice packs were half water-only which are better for the environment and easier to dispose of while Goodfood’s are all a non-hazardous combination of water and sodium polyacrylate.

Every ingredient is right-sized, so there was less food waste to go to the green bin, though this is likely due to more processing done in HelloFresh’s facilities and does result in more plastic to recycle, though at the same time less chopping, peeling and dicing.

One final thing we noted was that it was more apparent where HelloFresh’s ingredients were from as many of them were pre-packaged by other companies and had the brand names right on them. This differs from Goodfood which seems to pre-package (or re-package) their ingredients with either their brand or no brand.

Winner: Goodfood

Experience of HelloFresh vs Goodfood

Both have well-rounded, interesting, fresh and delicious meals that are enough to satisfy an average person’s hunger at dinnertime.

Goodfood’s portions are larger to the point where we can more often than not set aside a smaller portion of the meal for lunch the next day.

Their meals are a bit more interesting to me as some seem more unique and adventurous and the spice blends they provide take the flavor profile to the next level. Great if you enjoy the ‘craft’ of cooking or trying new foods.

HelloFresh’s are quicker, easier and have more of what I’d call “family friendly” meals. Bowls, pastas and salads with recognizable ingredients and aren’t too spicy. Great if you have kids and just want to be done with prep and sit down to eat.

Winner: Goodfood

Goodfood

Actual vs. Meal Selection

HelloFresh

Actual vs. Meal Selection

Cancelling

Goodfood can be cancelled at any time, but you must call customer service or use the live chat on their website.

HelloFresh can be cancelled through their website without having to interact with anyone. You’ll have to click cancel a few times though and select a reason for leaving.

Winner: HelloFresh

Should I use HelloFresh or Goodfood?

HelloFresh was good, but we’ll be sticking with Goodfood for now thanks to their consistency, customer service, lower prices and bigger portions.

Overall Winner: Goodfood

What to read next

• Best Meal Kit Subscription Boxes in Canada
• HelloFresh Review
• Goodfood Review

Over to you

Have you tried either of these meal kit options? What did you think? What is the most important factor for when choosing a meal kit service? Let us know by leaving a comment below!