I first signed up to My Food Bag in 2017 and stuck with it until early 2019 when I simply wanted a break for summer. It’s good to pause any food box over the summer period I’ve found, as I prefer to have barbeques, and I spend more time away from home or at friends and family for dinners.

The reason I joined My Food Bag was to learn how to cook healthier meals. I was stuck on a rotation of about 3 meals and decided My Food Bag would be a great way to expose myself to new recipes and to push the boundaries of what I knew how to prepare.

Below is my review of the past 18 months of My Food Bag. I hope this helps you decide whether My Food Bag is right for you, and gives you a better idea of what to expect in terms of both experience and recipes.

What is My Food Bag?

My Food Bag can be called a number of things. A food box, a meal delivery service, a meal kit, or a ready-made food box. Whatever you decide to call it, it all means the same thing: having a range of recipes arrive at your door every week with all the ingredients required to cook the meals.

Sounds good right?!

Kiwi’s are choosing food boxes like My Food Bag for a number of reasons. Some love being exposed to new meals (my reason), others love the convenience of not having to go to the supermarket, and others love that it forces you to eat healthy meals at home.

When did My Food Bag open?

My Food Bag was one of the first food box services in New Zealand (in fact it may have been the first). I’ve you’ve kept an eye on TV over recent years, or browsed through a book store in New Zealand, you would have heard of Nadia Lim who is the face of the business, and one of the co-founders.

Which areas does My Food Bag deliver too?

As of May 2019, My Food Bag delivery areas are extensive. In fact, My Food Bag claims to deliver to 87% of New Zealand households. To find out if you are in a delivery area just check out the My Food Bag help section – there are too many postcodes to list here!

How does My Food Bag work?

Joining My Food Bag only takes 2 minutes! All you need to do is head to their website, choose the food box you would like to subscribe too, then create an account by using your email address and choosing a password. You then set your delivery address and payment information and you’re ready!

The toughest decision you will need to make is choosing which is the best food box for you, and how many nights a week you want it. The good thing is that My Food Bag is not a long term contract (like a broadband connection!) so you can cancel or change your plan any time.

My Food Bag box options

Most food boxes have 3 or 4 different options, but with My Food Bag, there are a whole heap more so you are pretty much guaranteed to find something that suits your household. Below are some of the boxes available as at May 2019.

• My Classic – Nadia puts her twist on classic meals (their most popular food box)
• Fresh Start – The bag I typically use, which has meals of 450 calories with no refined sugar.
• My Vege – Vegetarian recipes (does the name give it away?).
• Ready in 20 – For those that want a quick meal that takes under 20 minutes to prepare.
• My Gourmet – Fancy restaurant quality meals direct from My Food Bag.
• Heat 2 Cook 2 – Two meals you cook, and two meals you heat and eat.
• My Family – Features kid-friendly meals.
• My Winter Warmers – Delivered 4 nights a week and has two slow cooker meals, and two classic winter meals.
• My Gluten Free – Meals which get the tick from Coeliac New Zealand.

Why would you want My Food Bag?

I’ve said in all my food box reviews that there are a number of reasons I like to use a food box. The main reasons are that I get to try new things, I save time by avoiding the supermarket (this probably also saves me money from buying unnecessary treats, magazines, or newspapers), and I know that I have everything I need to prepare the meal.

My Food Bag ensures I am 100% prepared

There is nothing worse than getting halfway through a recipe and realising you are missing a key ingredient. Normally when you notice this your right in the thick of preparing the meal and you can’t simply run down to the supermarket without turning off the boiling potatoes or taking the steak out of the pan.

Whenever this happens to me it throws me completely off, and we end up with a meal missing a few things…typically the veggies.

With My Food Bag, you get everything you need to complete the recipes they provide, minus some basic kitchen essentials (like oil, salt butter etc).

Better time management

Most of the My food Bag recipes take about 30 minutes to prepare. Admittedly when I first started on My Food Bag my ingredient knowledge was close to ZERO, so some recipes took 45 minutes and required reading and re-reading the recipe a few times before I figured this out.

After 18 months on My Food Bag, now the time is down to the recommended time, and I don’t really care if I don’t understand the recipe perfectly. I have learnt enough to know how to freestyle some meals, and what ingredients I can remove or add to make the meal ‘my own’.

I get exposed to new recipes and flavours

THIS IS THE BEST REASON TO JOIN! You’ll get to try a whole heap of new meals which you can add to your repertoire and continue cooking for many years ahead. I’ve been on My Food Bag for a long time, and there are very few (if any?) times the same recipe was repeated twice. I outgrew the first recipe binder they sent me, and am onto my second.

I’ve now got hundreds of recipes, and have made every single one of them. I’m a little fussy and don’t like kumara or mushrooms, but 95% of the My Food Bag recipes have been delicious. Furthermore, 80% of these recipes I would have never tried had I not signed up for a food box. I have no doubt I would have kept reusing my 3 or 4 go-to recipes for many years to come.

Who is My Food Bag good for?

Couples: There are six different My Food Bag options that cater to just two people, including the tasty My Gourmet Bag.  I’ve heard of many young professionals using My Food Bag as their working day extends well beyond 5 pm (shoutout to all the people working in marketing agencies out there ) so leaving work knowing that you have a pantry full of exactly the ingredients you need to cook a healthy home cooked meal is one less thing to worry about.

My Food Bag is also good for couples with young families or newborns, as the food box can cater to the parents, and give them a little more time to prepare the kids food.

Families: I’ve also used My Food Bag in a “family” situation (in my case it was actually four adults in a flatting situation). My Food Bag has a number of options suitable for families, and the My Food Bag recipes cater well for people wanting to cook for four people. Families also benefit from lower cost per servings through My Food Bag, as the delivery and administration cost is effectively spread around more meals.

My Food Bag details and features

My Food Bag is pretty straight forward, but I often get asked the same three questions by friends, family, and readers of this blog time and time again. These are how many people can My Food Bag feed, how much does it cost, and what kind of recipes are typically found in the boxes?

How many people can My Food Bag feed?

My Food Bag plans can serve between one and four people, although most boxes are made for two or four people (for example, you can’t buy the My Gourmet box for just one person).

Keep in mind that just because the My Food Bag website says a box serves four people, you can always buy a four-person box for just two people, and take the leftovers to work the next day to reheat.

How much does My Food Bag cost?

I could spend hours typing out here the prices of each food bag, however, the easiest way to see the prices would be to head directly to the My Food Bag website and select how many meals you want, for how many people, and you’ll see the prices immediately before signing up.

Use this link and you’ll see some discounted prices too ($40 off your first delivery ).

What kind of recipes will My Food Bag provide?

The My Food Bag recipes vary depending on which food box you subscribe too. Below is a selection of the recipes from May 2019 to help you decide which looks tastiest for you.

Fresh Start Recipes

This is the My Food Bag my family loves most. At only 450 calories per meal, and no refined sugar, this is the healthiest food box on the list. This week’s recipes were halloumi with roasted vegetables, coconut poached chicken with vermicelli salad, and beef stroganoff. My only tiny pet peeve with this low-calorie recipes is I sometimes need a bit of toast or a sandwich before going to bed. For reference, I’m a 80kg male .

Heat 2 Cook 2 Recipes

Shepherds Pie has always been one of my favourite meals, so it’s great to see it make it onto the My Food Bag recipe list in the Heat 2 Cook 2 food box. It’s fair to say however that the beef sirloin steak and creamy chicken paste look amazing too.

My Classic Recipes

My Family Recipes

My Gourmet Recipes

Fancy recipes deserve fancy black plate photos, right?! How tasty do these recipes look though! I’d happily live off the My Gourmet bag recipes for the rest of my life. The beef scotch with Yorkshire pudding definitely is the highlight of this weeks gourmet recipes. Although the Indian roasted chicken and pumpkin risotto look delicious too.

My Veggie Recipes

Some of the My Food Bag vegetarian recipes this week were masala potato cakes with lime beetroot, artichoke and ricotta cannelloni with leak sauce, and chilli bean nachos with chipotle sour cream. The mashed potato cakes were an absolute hit with our family, and we’ve starred the My Food Bag recipe to try it again in our time.

Ready in 20 Recipes

The Ready in 20 recipes truly only takes 20 minutes to take (ok, for beginners it may take 30) and are super healthy as well They are also cheaper than spending 20 minutes driving to the nearest McDonalds or Burger King fast food drive-through. This week the recipes included beef brisket, chicken nasi goreng, and coconut tumeric fish.

Pros & Cons

Everybody’s pros and cons will be different, just like everybody’s reasons to sign up to a food box is different. Below are some of my own personal likes and dislikes about My Food Bag. Most of these will also apply to any of the My Food bag alternatives as well, such as HelloFresh.

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

My Food Bag reviews

This review is just one of the hundreds you can find online (hint: most of them are on the My Food Bag Facebook page), so we’ve scoured the web and dropped a few other My Food Bag reviews below.

Have you tried My Food Bag 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’ve been getting it for over a year now and we find it really good. We wasted a lot of money prior to that on junk food and take-out. So it has saved us money. And there’s only the two of us, so it’s nice getting things in little portions – especially spices which would otherwise just sit in the cupboard going stale. Plus, I like the actual cooking, but I hate shopping and having to think about what’s for dinner. With this, I don’t think about it at all until we get home and start cooking.

My food bag is such an amazing idea. My husband and I are enjoying the gourmet menu, four nights a week and there’s even enough left over for the fifth night. The produce is top-notch. So exciting to get the goodies on a Sunday night. Cooking has become exciting again – great to try new flavours – had venison on a school night – who would have thought!

We had a super fun week of cooking our My Food Bag Classic meals, and we enjoyed all of them.

These My Food Bag reviews are taken from real people. In order of how they appear:

• Papango from reddit.com/r/newzealand
• Nicola from facebook.com
• Lisa from nofiltermum.co.nz

My Food Bag coupons, vouchers, and promo codes.

Using this link (or any link) on this page will get you 40% off your first order with My Food Bag. It would also be me a little discount on my next box as well, so if you enjoyed reading this review and sign up to My Food Bag that would be much appreciated!

Check out how some of the most popular My Food Bag prices change when you use the above link to apply our promo code:

At the moment we are not aware of any other My Food Bag coupons, but if we come across any, we will share them here. Have you found a My Food bag coupon that works? Let us know about it in the comments below!

My Food Bag is our #1 Hello Fresh Alternative

Many visitors to my website are looking for alternatives to Hello Fresh. They may be wanting to support a local company, or simply didn’t like the options provided by Hello Fresh. For those wanting to support a local food box company, then My Food Bag is probably one of the best Hello Fresh alternatives.

Summary

Ok so if you made it this far you can probably tell that I’m a fan of My Food Bag. If you’ve read any other My Food Bag reviews you’ll also have seen that most other people who have tried it are fans too (with a couple of reviews saying the price is a little high).

In over 50 deliveries there have probably been only 2 boxes that were missing an ingredient or had some low-quality vegetables. That’s a better error rate than when I drive to the supermarket myself and realise I forgot something when I get home!

My Food Bag recipes are delicious, healthy, and easy to cook. If you’re considering a food box, give My Food Bag a go. You can cancel anytime, so there is no major risk of a long term commitment.

Have you tried My Food Bag? 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.

The post My Food Bag review (a look back at 18 months of My Food Bag) appeared first on Smartfood.co.nz.

So you’ve been on Hello Fresh for a while, or it just doesn’t tick all the boxes your looking for in a food box. Maybe hello fresh prices are too high, or their delivery areas don’t include your home address. Whatever your reason for researching alternatives to Hello Fresh, you’ve come to the right place!

Before we go any further, I’ll cut to the chase (along with some sweet deals) if you prefer to go out and research yourself. These are our top four Hello Fresh Alternatives:

My Food Bag – 40% off discount link

If you want a more in-depth review of our top Hello Fresh alternatives then keep reading. Let’s take a look at them, one by one…

Hello Fresh Alternative #1 – My Food Bag

My Food Bag is the food box brand that most Kiwis know and love. It also happened to be the first food box that I signed up for 3 or 4 years ago (I then switched to Hello Fresh, then to WOOP, then back to ‘Made’ by the team behind My Food Bag….then to My Food Bag Fresh Start).

My Food Bag has a number of different food box options. You can view them all on their website, but a high-level overview of them is:

• My Classic
• Fresh Start – the plan my wife loves, and often insists we choose. I find I need a little snack before bed if we have this plan as it is low calorie (450 cals).
• My Family – good for kids
• My Vege – the best food box option for vegetarians
• My Plant Based Bag – uses vegan ingredients
• Ready in 20 – one of my favourite plans
• My Gourmet
• Heat 2 Cook 2 – this is two meals to cook, and two to heat up
• My Gluten Free – perfect for those needing a gluten free food box

If you’re familiar with Hello Fresh, then switching to My Food Bag will be simple. It’s all pretty much the same, just different options and a different brand.

Hello Fresh Alternative #2 – Woop

WOOP food is soooo delicious. Without a doubt the best tasting recipes from any food box in New Zealand. If you disagree, let me know in the comments. I’d switch back to WOOP in a heartbeat in my income allowed it, but it doesn’t, so I’ll stick to the other mainstream brands in New Zealand.

In saying that, if you earn a little bit more than me, or just want really good tasting food and are willing to pay a slight premium, then this is our most recommended Hello Fresh alternative (in fact, it’ll be our recommended food box. Full stop.)

Hello Fresh Alternative #3 – Bargain Box

I’ll be honest, at the time of writing this paragraph (early 2020), I haven’t tried a Bargain Box. But that doesn’t mean I can’t recommend it based on my friends and families feedback and their experience with Bargain Box.

Bargain Box is actually very similar to Hello Fresh. Again, at the time of writing, they both have three different types of food boxes available. Bargain Box offers the Mini box (feeds 2 people), Regular box (feeds 4), and the Mega box (feeds six people). You can choose to get these boxes delivered either 3 nights a week or 5 nights.

If you are new to food boxes is might be a good idea to start with just three nights, and if you like it, upgrade to five nights. This is also a good idea if you are a busy (or somewhat social) person. At the moment I am on My Food Bag, and get it for five nights a week. But it is Wednesday already, and I haven’t yet had my Monday or Tuesdays meals. On Monday I was working till 8pm, and then couldn’t be bothered cooking so got Burger Fuel. On Tuesday, friends came around and we had a barbecue. So now there is either going to be some questionable ingredients by the time I get to the fifth meal in this weeks box, or it’s wasted money in the bin.

Annnyway….that’s got nothing to do with why Bargain Box is a good alternative to Hello Fresh. Head to their website to learn more and see if Bargain box is right for you.

Why look for alternatives to Hello Fresh?

There are a number of reasons to shop around for an alternative to Hello Fresh…

Support an NZ brand: People are more and more wanting to support local brands, and it is no secret that Hello Fresh is a huge multi-national brand with their head office in Berlin, Germany. If you are purely looking for a Hello Fresh alternative because you want to support a New Zealand brand, then My Food Bag, WOOP, and Bargain Box will be your best options.

Delivery Areas: Other than supporting a NZ brand, missing a delivery area is one of the most common reasons visitors to my website are looking for an alternative to Hello Fresh. Last we checked (early 2020) Hello Fresh didn’t deliver to any South Island town or city, which is pretty rubbish considering how much of our population is spread between Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Queenstown.  So if you are looking for an alternative purely because Hello Fresh doesn’t deliver to your home address, then go check out My Food Bag. They deliver to 88% of New Zealand, including Christchurch and Dunedin.

Explore new recipes / see if the grass is greener: Seeing if the grass was green was actually the reason I once switched to Hello Fresh. I had been with My Food Bag for well over a year, and I was onto my second folder of recipes from them. I decided it was time to see what else was out there, and picked Hello Fresh (since I had seen them recently launch, and their staff were in all the big malls up here in Auckland). So if this was my story, no doubt there are people on Hello Fresh now, and looking for alternatives to Hello Fresh, simply because they want to see what else is out there.

You want tastier meals: I don’t say this because Hello Fresh meals aren’t delicious, but as with all things in life, there is normally a more ‘premium’ option for whatever you currently have. If you have a Toyota, you might want a Lexus, just like if you have Hello Fresh (the Toyota), you might want to dip your toes into My Food Bag gourmet meals (the Lexus), or WOOP (the even flasher Maserati).

Bad customer service: Again, I don’t list this because I’ve had bad experiences with Hello Fresh, or heard of anyone who has….but any company with thousands of customers is bound to eventually drop the ball in terms of customer service occasionally. If this has happened to you, the first thing you’re likely to do is to head to Google ans search for Hello Fresh alternatives. No company will be perfect, but if it helps you feel better by moving away from a brand that has let you down, then go ahead and switch

You want a gluten free food box: My Food Bag is our recommended alternative to Hello Fresh if you are looking for a gluten free food box. They have a tasty option made specifically for people who want (or need) gluten free meals.

The post Hello Fresh Alternatives appeared first on Smartfood.co.nz.

There are so many food boxes available in New Zealand now that consumers have a good number of brands to choose from. My Food Bag has been around for the longest, so no doubt has the most customers and the customers who have been loyal to a brand for the longest.

Before we go any further, I’ve got a sweet deal to share for our top My Food Bag alternative:

Hello Fresh – 30% off discount link

But what about My Food Bag alternatives? There are a number of them available now, including HelloFresh and Woop. Let’s take a look at them, one by one…

My Food Bag Alternative #1 – HelloFresh

HelloFresh is one of the newest brands on the block. Although new to New Zealand, HelloFresh is actually a giant company operating in a handful of countries. HelloFresh is really trying to push hard into the New Zealand market, with prices similar to My Food Bag and some of the pushy salespeople hanging out at mall kiosks around the country.

Joining HelloFresh is easy. It takes a couple of minutes and you can do it online from their website. Just choose the food box you prefer, create an account, and enter your delivery address and payment information.

HelloFresh delivers to a HUGE number of areas around New Zealand, which you can see in our full HelloFresh review that we wrote recently. There are three HelloFresh boxes currently available:

• Vegetarian – Completely vegetarian, but has the occasional dairy product
• Classic – Great meals that feature a number of meat and seafood recipes regularly
• Family – Meals designed for four people, and includes meat and seafood recipes

One of the main reasons I recommend Hello Fresh as one of our top my food bag alternatives is simply because they offer a great discount on your first delivery. Use this link to apply the discount.

Something else that makes Hello Fresh a great My Food Bag alternative is their app. I use it every week to check upcoming meals, pause boxes when I know I will be away, follow along on some recipes, and generally manage my account.

My Food Bag Alternative #2 – Woop

Woop has been around for a while, but I haven’t seen as much of them as I have My Food Bag, or more recently HelloFresh. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just means they have a smaller marketing budget (or prefer spending their budgets on customer service, or ingredients….or anything )

I first saw Woop at the Auckland Home Show in 2018 where it was being pitched as a My Food Bag alternative, as the salespeople there clearly knew that their warmest leads were going to be those that already used a food box, and would be open to trying an alternative.

My Food Bag Alternative #3 – Bargain Box

Bargain Box probably should be the first My Food Bag alternative you consider, as it is a brand owned and managed by the team behind My Food Bag. However, if you are searching for an alternative because you had a bad experience with My Food Bag, probably look else ware .

The Bargain Box has three options as seen below:

• Mini – Feeds just two people, and provides either 3 or 5 meals. Cost starts at $10 per plate
• Regular – Feeds four people, and provides either 3 or 5 meals. Cost starts at $6.65 per plate
• Mega – Feeds six people, and provides either 3 or 5 meals. Cost starts at $5.60 per plate

As you can see, the more mouths you are feeding with food boxes, the cheaper the cost per serving becomes. Take advantage of this by using the dinner meals for your lunches the next day. If you are a couple, there is nothing stopping you ordering a food box that serves four people to keep the cost per serving down, then having the leftovers for lunch the following day.

My Food Bag Alternative #4 – Emma’s Food Bag

I’ve been tempted to add Emma’s Food Bag here for a while, but always decide not too as their website isn’t as polished as the other brands, and I don’t want to send my readers towards something I haven’t tried. Since I’m in marketing as my day job I think presentation is super important, and Emma’s Food Bag is lacking a little in the branding department.

But we aren’t here to judge the marketing, let’s take a look at what this food box delivery, and whether you should consider it as an alternative to My Food Bag.

Emma’s Food Bag delivery areas are currently limited to Auckland and Waikato, and Bay of plenty. Head to their website for more information on exactly where in these regions they deliver.

Why look at My Food Bag alternatives?

There are a number of reasons to shop around for an alternative to My Food Bag…

Delivery areas: You might be in an area where My Food Bag doesn’t deliver, so you need to hunt out the brand which does deliver to your area. If you’ve read our HelloFresh review you’ll see that they deliver to a large number of cities and towns within New Zealand, so if delivery areas are your issue then I’d suggest trying HelloFresh next.

Poor experience: We don’t hear many stories of people having a bad experience with My Food Bag, so we would be surprised if this is your reason for looking for a My Food Bag alternative. But if you have been burnt, whether it be by the quality of the ingredients, misplaced deliveries, or poor customer service, then you may be looking for an alternative option.

New recipes: Trying one of the alternatives to My Food Bag opens you up to experiences a whole new range of recipes. Each company will have their in-house chefs designing the recipes, and you’ll be able to experience the types of meals they like to create. I was with My Food Bag for 18 months before I paused it, and now have nearly 2 folders of My Food Bag recipes, so when I start up a new food box I’m looking forward to starting at square one again and getting to try a whole bunch of new flavours. The Woop meals I’ve seen recently look super enticing, but I think I’ll try HelloFresh first to see what all the fuss is about, then in 6 months time give Woop another try.

Less preparation: You may be looking for a food box that comes even more prepared, with vegetables already diced, or even be looking for something closer to a meal delivery service where the food simply needs five minutes of heating. If it is fully prepared meals you are looking for try Papagaio, JUK, plate up, EAT, FitFood, or Fed. For a food delivery service that comes with less prep, try Woop. Woop veges are already chopped and prepped ready for you! Our full Woop review will give you more insight into this awesome Kiwi food box.

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