Are Meal Kit Services Worth It in Canada?

The main meal kit services in Canada — HelloFresh, Chefs Plate, and Goodfood — charge between $9 and $13 per serving at regular prices. For a household of two eating three meals per week, that works out to $54 to $78 per week, or $230 to $335 per month. A comparable home-cooked meal using grocery store ingredients costs roughly $3 to $5 per serving.

The introductory offers are genuinely good deals. Most services offer 50 to 60 percent off your first box, and some extend discounts for the first three or four weeks. If you treat meal kits as a short-term way to build your recipe repertoire — cook the meals, save the recipe cards, then cancel — you can get real value from the intro period without committing to the expensive regular pricing.

What you are really paying for with meal kits is convenience and variety, not savings. Pre-portioned ingredients eliminate food waste and grocery shopping time. If your alternative is ordering takeout at $15 to $25 per person, meal kits actually save money. But if your alternative is cooking from groceries, meal kits cost significantly more.

Better alternatives exist for budget-conscious Canadians. Free meal planning apps like Mealime generate weekly plans with consolidated grocery lists. The Flipp app lets you browse every flyer in your area to shop sales. Combining meal planning with sale shopping can bring your per-serving cost down to $2 to $3 — a fraction of meal kit pricing.