Came back 4 years later to try again
I used HelloFresh for 1-2 years, starting around 2020. I really enjoyed the recipes and the experience, but eventually decided to cancel for a bit because I wasn't always making the meal quickly enough and was being drawn towards grocery shopping and more freedom. I figured I'd come back eventually when I got tired of grocery shopping again.
Fast forward almost 5 years, and I decided to get it back for a bit. The packaging and system still work great, and I was excited about newer selling points that didn't exist last time, like more breakfast and additional protein options. But when my first box came, I was fairly disappointed. I had selected some of my favorite recipes from 2020, and while they were still easy to cook and tasted well enough, it was clear that their philosophy towards their recipes had changed quite a bit. It was very obvious that they had moved to a model of including as few ingredients as possible to lower their costs. I understand that, with current levels of inflation, they are likely trying not to toe the line between keeping costs down for consumers and maintaining a decent margin, but the recipes just don't work as well and feel like they're missing something.
I understand that even in 2020, popular dishes could change slightly from week to week based on availability. Bakk then, you might get the Tuscan Italian dish zucchini and chicken sausage one week, and then with pork sausage the following week, but the main sauce ingredients and the recipe weren't really changing. Now that I've come back, it's clear they're subbing in cheap alternative ingredients. Like seemingly putting cream cheese and tomato paste in every red sauce and no longer including the cubed tomato or tomato puree. I'm sure there are other examples too, but I gave up pretty quickly. It's too bad American food companies always degrade over time in order to cut costs. It's what we see every time a popular small business sells to one of the main food conglomerates.