YouFoodz Full Review

In March of 2023 I replaced my workday lunches with Youfoodz. I like using pre-packaged meals for lunch, that allow me to get a variety of food that is more interesting than the soggy sandwich I brought from home. To keep me interested they need to be tasty and filling, without breaking the bank.

I found Youfoodz to be a solid choice, and one of the more affordable pre-packaged meals, but only when purchased in bulk. The price drops rapidly as you approach the cheapest 20 meals per week.

However, since they were purchased by HelloFresh in 2022, they no longer offer one-off purchases. They only offer subscriptions. The most affordable way to buy YouFoodz is to purchase an 18 meal subscription, immediately cancel the subscription, and freeze the remaining meals – not exactly user friendly.

Summary

In terms of serving size, I was surprisingly impressed with Youfoodz. They are large and full of protein. Their Fuel’d options are their High Protein Meal option, which I enjoyed. Personally, I preferred the taste of My Muscle Chef, but they are more expensive per meal.

I thought the meals were on the more basic range of the scale, but are certainly more acceptable than the tiny servings I found with Lite n Easy.

Getting Started

There are two options you can take with Youfoodz:

1. Pick a subscription – you can choose a variety of meals per week, from 5 to 18. You can pick your list of pre-packaged meals which get delivered every week.
2. Buy Individually – Youfoodz are currently available at Coles and Ampol, so you can buy small numbers of meals to try them or just to pad out your dinners and lunches for the week.

If you start a plan with Youfoodz, you will see this preference choice. This only dictates which meals you get shown first. Just because you select Vegetarian doesn’t mean that you can’t order meat meals down the track.

A big downside is that you can’t order one-off purchases any more. This changes when HelloFresh bought them last year. So, if you are only ordering 5 meals per week for your lunch, the price is significantly higher – you should just buy them from your local supplier instead.

Recipe Choice

Youfoodz have over 60 meals to choose from. This is one of the better choice options. Generally once you find the 5-10 meals that you really like you can rotate through them with ease.

I did notice they have an extremely high number of chicken meals. This random screenshot below of their menu shows 5 out of the 6 meals displayed are chicken based. In fact, more than 50% of their non-vegetarian meals include chicken.

This isn’t a problem if you like chicken, but the lack of variety may become an issue over time.

Meal Customisation

YouFoodz meals are all prepackaged, so there is no ability to customize meals.

Cost

Youfoodz are one of the more affordable pre-packaged meal options, but only when you buy in bulk online.

Purchasing individually from the grocery store currently costs $10.95, so unless you need to order more than 12 meals online to get any savings.

Here is a table of their subscription costs and the reduction in price per serve as the order grows.

Servings	Cost	Cost per Serve
5	$69.95	$13.99
7	$76.93	$10.99
9	$94.41	$10.49
12	$119.88	$9.99
16	$143.84	$8.99
18	$152.82	$8.49

Most meal delivery services offer 25+ options to really get the big discounts, which are more suited to a family. Youfoodz maxes out at 18 meals per week.

Delivery

Youfoodz are delivered in a cardboard box with an insulated lining. They can last outdoors for 3-4 hours, so make sure you are available relatively close to their delivery window.

Quick Tip: Make sure you check the used by date on your delivered meals and eat them in order to avoid meals doing off. I did purchase a Youfoodz from Ampol that expired on the day I bought it!

You can also buy Youfoodz from Coles and Ampol fuel stations.

Meal Quality

First things first, the Youfoodz meals look nothing like the marketing images on the packaging. The meal in generally more bland in colour and certainly lacks any herbs that pop in the photo.

The meat quality is certainly superior in the Fuel’d and Premium meal options. I did notice some gristle in the standard meal tier that you might want to avoid.

The ingredients are certainly less fresh than the cook-yourself meal delivery services, but this is inevitable with prepackaged meals.

Cooking Requirements

Non. Nil. Nada.

The instructions couldn’t be simpler:

1. Remove the cardboard sleeve.
2. Peel back the corner of the plastic.
3. Remove any sauce if present.
4. Microwave for between 2 and 4 minutes, depending on the meal.
5. Eat.

Taste

The taste of Youfoodz was decent but nothing special. It isn’t going to win any Michelin stars. The photo below is the Chicken and Potato Chipotle I tested. The potato was sprinkled with paprika, and the chipotle sauce was flavoursome without being too spicey. However, the ratio of potato to chicken was off – there wasn’t enough meat.

You will see how much potato there is compared to chicken. Simply not enough chicken.

One point I did notice about My Muscle Chef was a lemon taste which they use as a natural preservative. I didn’t notice this at all in Youfoodz meals.

The next meal I want to comment on about taste is the Steak, Chips, and Gravy from their Fuel’d range. I only rate it a 5 out of 10 for taste, for a few reasons:

1. It doesn’t have any steak – it contains roast beef.
2. The roast beef had quite a lot of fat and gristle that had to be removed.
3. The gravy mainly tasted of mustard rather than gravy.

It was filling, and fine for a fairly basic lunch, but if I was getting the same meal title from Hello Fresh, it would be a substantially higher quality alternative.

Subscription Flexibility

Youfoodz is incredibly flexible. The cut-off date for changes to your plan is generally 4 days before delivery – so if your delivery is on Saturday, you need to make changes by the Tuesday before.

You can add meals, swap meals, add snacks, and make any changes to your subscription. You can cancel at any time within that window.

Please Note: You can't cancel your subscription directly from the Youfoodz app. You have to log into the website to do this. Annoying!

Customer Service

Although I didn’t have any negative experiences, there are dozens of comments online about the poor customer service that Youfoodz have. Many people have experienced missing or damaged meals, and had to spend hours fighting with customer support. They don’t offer a phone number, but deal with customers mostly through chat systems.

Alternative Comparison

Who Is YouFoodz Suited For?

Youfoodz is one of the more affordable pre-packaged meal options. They are best suited for people wanting to move away from cooking yourself to save time. They have healthy options, and high protein meals, for more active people. In my case I used them to replace my soggy sandwich lunches for work, and I enjoyed them.

This is a list of the suburbs and cities that Youfoodz supplies. They don’t service every town, so take a close look before you do too much research into them.

Conclusion

In summary, I rated Youfoodz as a middle of the pack 8 out of 10. Their meals are tasty, affordable and convenient. The serving size is large enough even for a hungry adult. However, their variety is lacking, especially in the vegetarian category. They also don’t offer one-off orders online, and try to force customers into weekly subscriptions.

Personally, if I had to pick one pre-packaged meal service for the rest of my life, I would pick My Muscle Chef because of the slightly improved taste and the increased order flexibility.