My Food Bag’s co-founder and ambassador Nadia Lim with a selection from the "My Classic Christmas" spread.
Food kits can take the hassle out of festive feasting but which one should you choose? Kim Knight compares menus, cost and prep times from four major providers and discovers some startling variations - including a menu that contains 30 cloves of garlic.
In the battle of the Christmas food kits, there can be just one winner.
(Spoiler: It is probably not your wallet).
As households count down to the most stressful and expensive meal of the year, teams of commercially savvy kitchen elves are promising to lighten the load.
One-off festive food kits are designed to take the planning, shopping and, in some cases, even the vegetable chopping, out of the Christmas Day food equation.
In the beginning there was My Food Bag, but today, the meal kit market includes Woop, HelloFresh and, for North Island customers, Farro.
Who does it best? The Herald’s Premium Lifestyle team cannot brine, stuff and truss your turkey - but we can help determine which outsource option might best suit your whānau.
We’ve trawled websites, phoned call centres and perused the “frequently asked questions” lists to compare menus, costs and prep times for a three-course meal offering from four of the country’s major food kit providers.
We found costs ranged from $38 to almost $60 per person.
One provider promised six kilograms of meat, another offered just 3.6kg.
Green beans, cherry tomatoes and baby potatoes featured heavily. And while every menu ended with a pavlova-adjacent pudding, only one required 30 cloves of garlic.
Some important qualifiers: Kit sizes, content, customer choice components and delivery dates and pick-up options vary between companies.
We based per person calculations on the maximum numbers each kit is designed to feed.
Prices were rounded up and did not factor in any sales discounts.
Calculations were based on the following meal kits:
If first impressions count then Woop counts twice as the only kit with a double canape offering - sherry glazed chorizo crostini with pea puree and mandarin plus basil and cashew pesto pinwheels.
My Food Bag also does pinwheels (caramelised onion and parmesan with an artichoke dip and walnuts) while Farro leans pescetarian with smoked salmon pate and caper salsa on sesame crackers. HelloFresh has the only plate and fork first course (chilli garlic prawns and avocado cos salad with herby mayonnaise).
The winner: Depends on your appetite for dishwashing.
If you mostly do December 25 for the meat be aware not all kits are created carnivorously equal.
All four companies provide two animal proteins.
HelloFresh customers get no choice, receiving approximately 1.2kg of ham and 1.65kg of lamb in a “regular” box that will feed 4-6 people.
At Woop and Farro, select from ham, lamb and turkey. My Food Bag offers the same, plus salmon.
Prices can vary depending on selection; quantities depend on the provider. We based our comparisons on ham and turkey kits (where possible), dividing the total provided quantities in each kit by the maximum number it is designed to feed.
My Food Bag (600g of meat per person) came out tops, followed by Farro (550g) and Hello Fresh and Woop (475g each).
The winner: How badly do you want a leftover ham sandwich on Boxing Day?
Nothing says Christmas like red and green vege and a tonne of spuds. Happily, all four kits deliver on this expectation (and some go above and beyond).
On paper at least, Woop’s looks the most minimal - gourmet potatoes with kawakawa mayonnaise and a cherry tomato and bean salad with hazelnut dukkah and feta.
If you include the cranberry and sage stuffing balls, My Food Bag offers five sides. Also on the menu, capsicum and courgette salad with roasted red pepper tapenade, marmalade and mustard greens with feta, sage and garlic roasted carrots with pecan crumble and basil gremolata piccolo potatoes.
Farro does two salads - roast pepper, tomato and green bean and baby cos, green apple and cucumber - plus a roast vegetable “medley” with feta.
Finally, Hello Fresh. Panzanella salad and basil pesto dressing with garlicky croutons. Lemony sauteed greens with almonds and garlic mint yogurt. Garlic and rosemary butter roast potatoes with honey-thyme baby rainbow carrots.
Yes, this was the menu that, when ordered for 8-10 people, required 30 cloves of garlic (eight of them in the lamb). But, also, according to the online recipes, it was also the only one in which the “green” was asparagus.
The winner: Asparagus versus green beans? No competition.
Only Hello Fresh does double duty in this department, offering both white choc-chip brownies and smashed meringues (with a lemon-passionfruit sauce, strawberries and almonds).
Staying with the theme, Farro has a tropical meringue tower with white chocolate, mango and passionfruit and Woop’s dessert is an individual strawberry Eton mess with white chocolate and honey pistachio crumb.
Food Bag goes full pavlova (with a twist) - black forest chocolate, cream and cherry compote.
The winner: Is it still Christmas if there is only one pudding?
There are two ways of looking at this. The more time you have to spend in the kitchen, the less small talk you’ll be making with distant relatives. On the flipside, by the time you get to sit down the Lindauer will be warm and all the good Roses chocolates will be gone (is a strawberry creme ever anybody’s first choice?).
If you want to keep prep time to an absolute minimum, Woop promises Christmas dinner in under three hours, via its pre-chopped vegetables, pre-made sauces and pre-marinated meats.
HelloFresh advises you can almost halve your kitchen time with helpers, but if you’re flying solo expect to spend 3.5 hours prepping (this can be done the day before) and up to four hours cooking on the day.
My Food Bag recommends allowing up to four hours from whoa to go on Christmas Day, but you will have to make the pavlova a day or two earlier. Farro, meanwhile, comes in at under three hours, including an estimated 90 minutes prep.
The winner: Is your time money? And, if so, what is your hourly rate.
Some kits are designed to feed more than others, protein portion sizes vary between companies and prep time could be as much of a consideration as cost.
Most offer add-ons for an additional fee - cheese boards or a side of salmon (if that’s not part of the main offer).
In short, we are not comparing apples with apples (or even lamb with ham).
But if you divide the total cost of each kit by the maximum number it is designed to feed, you can derive a basic “per person” bottom line: HelloFresh ($38.33), My Food Bag ($39), Farro ($44.90) and Woop ($59.87).
Conclusion: Can you put a price on Christmas Day?
Kim Knight is an award-winning journalist with the New Zealand Herald’s Premium Lifestyle team. She holds a Master’s in gastronomy and her go-to Christmas menu always includes enough trifle for Boxing Day breakfast.
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