These ready meal delivery services...

[SkinnyPete]

The likes of FRIVE, Ping, Simmer etc. seem to be increasingly popular, but what do we think? Healthy resturant quality precooked meals delivered to your door, saving you time and improving your diet, or glorified medicore ready meals?

I must admit I like the concept, I just don't know if I can mentally commit to spending £7.99 for a meal that arrives in plastic packaging that you reheat in the microwave.

Has anyone tried them and found a favorite service or meal that actually feels worth it? Or do they mostly disappoint?

[AndyTR]

We occasionally get single meals from cook, useful if one of us (me) is working away and the other one (Mrs TR) can't cook / be arsed to cook. Usually very good, the fish dishes especially.

https://www.cookfood.net

[AndyAudi]

I think it depends greatly on what your own cooking ability is & experience with food.

It amazed me during Covid how many in their 20/30’s couldn’t actually cook a meal - home was takeaway/frozen oven stuff - for these kinda characters it’s probably a good shout to get something vaguely healthy relatively quickly at compariable pricing.

I’d struggle with paying for the pre made stuff as fairly sure I could make anything on offer fairly easily myself & for most I wouldn’t view as a “treat”. ( It amazes me folk go out & order “macaroni!!

[SkinnyPete]

Fair point about peoples ability to cook, that could definitely cloud their judgement.

I've taken advantage of a 40% discount at FRIVE for a first order, and will report back with my thoughts. Though one thing I've noticed already is the high sugar content of these "healthy" dishes which will probably spoil it for me.

[22s]

I've tried a few.

Frive are surprisingly delicious and nutritionally pretty good too. There are a couple of issues, however:

1. They don't freeze well
2. As fresh meals, they go off within 3-4 days in the fridge if you don't cook them
3. Their allergen control was extremely poor - don't know if they fixed it. Once they sent out a meal containing nuts without listing it on the label or website - luckily they somehow spotted it and emailed the day after we got the delivery pointing out the mistake. Another time, they sent out a meal containing nuts, which wasn't mentioned on the website, but was on the label and I luckily noticed before eating it - they weren't aware at all. Pretty unforgiveable for an 'ingredient/nutrition focused' company.


Field Doctor https://www.fielddoctor.co.uk/ are good and arrive frozen. This is much better for us as with work etc never know if we're going to need a meal or not. I think they are healthier than Frive, but not quite as delcious. We use them a lot.

Cook as mentioned previously are okay but they are much more like a traditional ready meal and not the sort of thing I'd want to eat every day (delicious, but too rich).

Field Goods https://fieldgoods.co.uk/ also nice but I'd put into the same category as Cook. Basically a posh ready meal.

My partner is having Simmer at the moment and so far so good...

With all of them the overriding issue is you get bored with the menus as they become quite repetitive.

Overall, I think there's a place for them and I'm a fan of them for weekdays. To the point above (which always comes up on threads about ready meals and takeaways) regarding cooking ability - it's not always because people can't cook (although there is of course a lot of them too). For us, it means a lot less wastage (there's only two of us) and with demanding jobs it's an easy way to get a healthy meal in. We do enjoy cooking as well - lunches we meal prep on Sundays and usually cook at least one of our meals at the weekend if not out with friends etc. But at the moment convenience is king on weekdays.

Other people can cook, but don't enjoy it and have zero interest in it.

Edited by 22s on Sunday 8th February 15:45

[Greenmantle]

I would interested to know about the quality of the food provided by the services mentioned here.
I want to compare them to something like those advertising a lot on the TV.
Due to necessity some years ago I had to get serious about cooking for myself and kids.
Its going to take something mind blowing for me to change my opinion that cooking well for oneself and family is a necessity.

[Jordan247]

We have used "Hello Fresh" and similar in the past when they have additional discount and the quality of the meals is generally excellent.

I do find the portions quite small, but that probably down to me..

[48k]

Jordan247 said:

We have used "Hello Fresh" and similar in the past when they have additional discount and the quality of the meals is generally excellent.

I do find the portions quite small, but that probably down to me..

Hello Fresh is a recipe box not a preprepared delivered meal though.

[SkinnyPete]

22s said:

Lots of good stuff

Thanks for that.

I've tried the first of the Frive food which arrived today. There is no doubting the flavour, it does taste like a good home cooked meal thats been reheated in the microwave, but the salt and sugar content is on the higher side for a lot of the dishes.

I'll continue to try them over the coming weeks before switching to another supplier and taking advantage of another welcome bonus

[Jordan247]

48k said:

Hello Fresh is a recipe box not a preprepared delivered meal though.

That will teach me not to read the OP properly!