Woop Review (Expectations VS Reality)

Woop is a food box with (nearly) ready-made meals that just need the final touches added at home.

Food box popularity has exploded in New Zealand in recent years with My Food Bag, and more recently HelloFresh, offering great value for money for Kiwis who want to skip going to the supermarket and choosing their own recipes.

If you’re reading this, you probably know why food boxes are so popular. You’ve had a long day at work and are now fighting through the 5pm traffic to get home. You’re worn out, and look in the fridge and nothing is there. You consider going down to the local Subway, fish and chip shop, or looking on UberEats to get a meal delivered. Alternatively, you open up your cookbook and start flicking through the pages trying to find something that inspires you, but you don’t want to have to get back in the car and make your way to the supermarket.

If this sounds like you then you are not alone. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders feel the same way and are switching to food box deliveries which makes preparing family dinners much less of a hassle.

When did Woop open?

Woop was founded by Thomas Dietz and launched in New Zealand in 2015. The brand has been growing strong ever since. In 2018 the company was ranked 8th in the Deloitte Fast 50 awards with revenue growth of 669%.

I’ve placed a good introductory video about Woop below – ignore all the business type talk near the end! This video was made to entice investors to invest in Woop in 2015 via the crowdfunding website Snowball effect.

Which areas does Woop deliver too?

Woop delivers to Auckland, Waiheke Island, Christchurch, Wellington, Palmerston North, Hamilton, Tauranga, and Rotorua. This is correct as at the time of writing (early 2019), but to be extra sure on the latest delivery areas be sure to check out the Woop website.

How does Woop work?

Joining Woop is just the same as joining in other food box delivery service. So if you are switching from My Food Bag, HelloFresh, or any of the others then you’ll find it super easy!

It takes about two minutes from start to finish. Maybe a little bit longer if you need time to decide which box appeals to you most. Just head to the Woop website, browse through the various boxes, choose how many nights you would like to eat Woop meals each week, and how many people you want to feed.

Easy!

Woop box options

Woop offers four different food boxes at the moment. These tick all the needs for most situations, with a family box, gluten-free box, foodie box, and healthy “balance” box.

• Foodie box – Woops cheapest food box with vibrant recipes from around the world.
• Balance box – This is Woops healthy box with balanced recipes your body will love
• Classic box – The Classic box feeds two adults and two to three kids with family-friendly recipes
• Gluten-free box – Gluten-free recipes inspired by dishes around the world

Why would you want to join Woop?

There are so many reasons to try a food box delivery service such as Woop. For me personally, I appreciate that I can save time by avoiding the supermarket. I don’t know about smaller towns, but the supermarkets in Auckland get a bit crazy after work during the 5.30pm rush. Avoiding the supermarket also means I spend less money on stuff I don’t actually need; the sneaky bag of Tim Tams, a newspaper I’ll probably not read as I can do it for free on my phone, or a magazine.

Food boxes like Woop also let me try new recipes and flavours, and also give me peace of mind knowing that when I arrive home I’ll have everything I need to create a tasty healthy recipe.

Woop makes sure I am always fully prepared

Who else hates driving home 30 minutes from work to discover you are missing a key ingredient for the meal you planned, and now have to jump back in your car and head to the nearest supermarket? We’ve all been there!

Woop ensures I get everything I need at the start of the week (minus a few essentials such as salt, oil, pepper etc) so I can arrive home from work and know that every ingredient I need is there in my pantry and fridge.

I get to save time in the evenings

Woop recipes don’t take long to prepare. So between the time saved avoiding a drive to the supermarket, the time spent choosing a recipe, and the time spent gathering up all the ingredients I need – Woop frees up time to let me do other things in the evening.

This benefit is captured best in our Woop Reviews section below, where I gather up other peoples reviews from around New Zealand. One blogger said, “WOOP makes you feel like you’re cooking with all the boring bits edited out”. Perfect!😂

You’ll get to try tasty Woop recipes and flavours

When you get to the recipes section further down this review, you’ll see words like Gochujang and Shakshuka. What are these words?! Without Woop I’d have never seen them, but now I’ve even written them into my blog despite not being able to say them. 😂

Signing up to a food box like Woop will expose you to a whole heap of new ingredients and recipes that you would have otherwise been oblivious too. It’s a great way to discover new food and try new things.

Who is Woop good for?

Couples: All Woop boxes come with the option to provide just enough food for two people, making them a perfect dinner size for couples.

Families: The Woop Foodie box, Balance Box, and Gluten-free box all come with the option to serve four adults, making these food boxes perfect for families with hungry teens, or flatting situations where there are four adults living together. For a more traditional family house with two adults, and a couple of kids, the Classic box is what you need. The Woop recipes in this box are family friendly and will be loved by all ages.

Woop details and features

Woop is a pretty standard food box (not that it doesn’t have its own unique benefits that I’m sure their marketing team could talk for hours about), but in the grand scheme of things, you pay a weekly fee and in return, you get delicious recipes and ingredients delivered to your door.

There are three common questions we get asked about Woop, which are how many people can Woop feed, how much does Woop cost, and what are the Woop recipes like?

How many people can Woop feed?

All the Woop food boxes serve 1 adult, 2 adults, or 4 adults  -with the exception of the Classic box which feeds 2 adults and 2 to 3 kids. We’ve heard of couples getting the box designed for 4 adults before, and preparing leftovers for lunch the next day (as the cost per serving is generally less if the box contains enough ingredients for four people).

• Foodie box – 1 adult, 2 adults, or 4 adults
• Balance box – 1 adult, 2 adults, or 4 adults
• Classic box – Feeds 2 adults and 2 to 3 kids
• Gluten-free box – 1 adult, 2 adults, or 4 adults

How much does Woop cost?

The easiest way to see how much each Woop food box costs is to head over to their website and play around with which box you want, how many nights you want it for, and how many people you want to feed.

Click here to go directly to their box section.

What are the Woop recipes like?

You can check out the latest Woop recipes for all the boxes on their website. However, if you can’t be bothered visiting their website, then I’ve posted a few of the recipes from mid-2019 below. Every Woop recipe you see below has an estimated cook time of between 20 to 30 minutes, with the average cook time being closer to 20 minutes.

Foodie box recipes

This weeks Foodie box recipes featured Lebanese lamb flatbreads, crumbed pork medallions, and French tarragon chicken with crispy potatoes.

Balance box recipes

Balance box this week had Gochujang orange miso pork (don’t panic if you don’t know that first word, I’ve got no idea what it is either! 🤷), oven roasted lemon and thyme chicken, and Shakshuka (?!?!) with baked eggs and halloumi.

Classic box recipes

I actually know what most of the ingredients in the classic box are! 😂 The Classic Woop box features chicken fajitas, chicken pot pie (yum!), and lamb steaks on crispy parmesan potatoes. The Woop classic box is one of my favourite food boxes available in New Zealand! How good are those parmesan potatoes!

Gluten free box recipes

Woop Pros & Cons

Occasionally you may get an ingredient you don’t like (e.g. mushrooms!), but over time you learn to like them. 🤷

One big pro about choosing Woop as your food box is their commitment to the environment. Woop lets you re-use the delivery box and cool packs by leving them on your door step for collection at your next delivry. 99% of Woop packaging is recyclable as well, so you won’t feel guilty throwing it in the bin. Finally, Woop goes over and above by offsetting their carbon emissions through planting trees. Good stuff!

Woop reviews

I’ve spent a few minutes looking around local websites and blogs trying to find some unbiased Woop reviews to share with you here. Below are three snippets I’ve pinched from other Woop reviews to help you decide if this is the right food box for you.

Have you tried Woop and would like to share your review here, please do it in the comments at the bottom of this page. We’d love to add it here!

We also found ourselves finally being excited about what we were cooking. From the anticipation of waiting for the delivery, opening the boxes, discovering the ingredients to the cooking and creating the meal. It made our midweek nights something to look forward too.

I love that 90% of the prep is done so it really is a no brainer at the end of the day. If you’ve got older kids/teenagers they could even do it themselves if they were confident in the kitchen! With younger kids, if you had the time, it’s a great way to get them started in the kitchen

Because the hard work is done for you, WOOP makes you feel like you’re cooking with all the boring bits edited out. Kind of like a cooking show.

These Woop reviews are taken from real people. In order of how they appear:

• Dawn from goingnz.com
• imnotsupermum.com
• Genie from bunnyeatsdesign.com

Woop coupons, vouchers, and promo codes.

At the moment we have no Woop promo codes available. Sorry! Check back here soon.

Woop Summary

If you’ve made it this far through my Woop review you probably can guess what my recommendation is going to be. Give WOOP a try! 

I’m a big fan of food boxes in general, and Woop has a place in my top three food boxes available in New Zealand (up there alongside My Food Bag and HelloFresh for those wondering what my other two picks are).

You don’t just have to take my own Woop review as gospel, there are literally dozens of other reviews on other blogs, some of which I’ve visited and included a few snippets from above.

Woop recipes are absolutely delicious, and being able to arrive home after a day at work and have Woop ingredients and a Woop recipe sitting there ready for me is one less thing I have to worry about.

Take a look above at our Woop promo code section, see if there is one that works for you, then head over to the Woop website and give it a crack!

Have you tried Woop? Let us know in the comments below what you thought of it and help other New Zealanders decide which food box is best for them to try.