typical GBP 3.50-6 after intro offers end
Advanced options
The box sits between supermarket cooking (~GBP 1.50-2.50/portion) and takeaway (~GBP 8-12/portion): it's a premium over the shop and a saving over the app: which one it's competing with in YOUR week decides whether it saves or costs. The intro offers (50-60% off first boxes) are the real bargain: the full-price question is the one to answer before the discounts run out. Pause/skip beats cancel-anxiety: every service allows it.
What The Recipe Box Calculator Works Out
- Box cost per year: price per portion x meals a week x people x 52. Post-introductory prices run GBP 3.50 to GBP 6 a portion, so three meals a week for two is typically GBP 1,200 to GBP 1,900 a year.
- The three-way ladder: the same meals cooked from the supermarket at about GBP 2 a portion, from the box, and from the takeaway app at about GBP 10. The identical box saves four figures a year if it displaces takeaways and costs several hundred if it displaces your own cooking.
- What the box is actually selling: decision-removal, portioned ingredients that genuinely cut waste for one-and-two-person households, and cooking skills by stealth. The recipe cards are the durable product; the graduation move is to keep them and shop the ingredients yourself.
- Delivery fee and weeks a year (advanced): some services charge GBP 3 to GBP 5 a box for delivery, and most subscribers pause for holidays, so the annual bill uses the boxes you really take.
- Share of meals replacing a takeaway (advanced): the honest audit that decides the verdict. At 50% the box usually roughly breaks even for a couple; at 100% it saves well over GBP 1,000; at 0% it is a premium on home cooking.
- Supermarket and takeaway cost per portion (advanced): edit the ladder's rungs for your own shopping and your local takeaway prices.
- Intro offer (advanced): first-box discounts of 50% to 60% for the first four or so boxes are genuinely excellent value, designed to expire before the full-price question gets asked. The first-year figure shows the real cost once they have.
- Food waste avoided (advanced): for small households the portioned ingredients can avoid several pounds a week of half-used jars and dying vegetables; add an estimate and it counts towards the verdict.
- Per meal for the household and per month (advanced): the box dinner priced as one meal for everyone at the table including delivery, and the annual bill as a monthly subscription figure beside your other subscriptions.