Since launching their Australian meal kits in 2015, Marley Spoon have delivered pre-portioned ingredients to hundreds of thousands of households. They’ve become a household name for providing a wide range of chef-designed recipes with healthy ingredients.
The question is, can they meet the high expectations their price demands? That’s what I’m here to share with you.
If you’ve not tried Marley Spoon before, I’m going to share my own experiences and opinions about their meal kit experience. This review isn’t sponsored, but if you want to give Marley Spoon a try I’ve negotiated a deal exclusively for my readers which you can access with the large yellow boxes below.
Marley Spoon Review
Summary
A functional, if unspectacular experience from Marley Spoon with comforting homemade food. They offer the widest variety of meals and will be perfect for anyone with picky eaters or dietary restrictions.
Overall
8/10
- Ordering – Website – 8/10
- Food – Quality – 8/10
- Ordering – Meal Choice – 9.5/10
- Food – Taste – 7/10
- Ordering – Delivery – 9/10
- Value For Money – 6.5/10
Pros
- 70+ different recipes to choose from each week.
- Easy to use mobile app to manage your deliveries.
- Consistent ingredient quality and freshness.
- Meals are nutritionally balanced, with good amounts of protein and fibre.
Cons
- Meals lack excitement and adventurous flavours.
- The clarity of recipe cards could be improved.
- Only 1 in 5 meals are customisable.
- Slightly more expensive than HelloFresh for a similar service.
Marley Spoon offer a semi-premium meal kit service that includes all the ingredients you need to cook up between 2 and 6 different recipes each week. You choose which meals you want to get delivered, wait for your delivery, then simply follow each detailed instructional card detailing every cooking step you need to take.
If you’re not sure what a meal kit is or how awesome they are, check out our meal kit guide.
Marley Spoon is currently available to residents in all Australian states and territories, with fulfillment centers in Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne. There may be limited delivery options in more rural areas.
Page Contents
Getting Started with Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon have a super simple, easy to use website that allows you to see what’s on their menu for the next 4 weeks. If you’re thinking of giving Marley Spoon a try, it’s definitely worth checking out the meals on offer.
When signing up, you can choose between either a 2 or 4 person box that contains either 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals each week.
At this stage, you also have the option to make your box vegetarian which prevents any meat-based meals from showing in your menu.
Your subscription is a completely flexible one that can be cancelled at any time at least 7 days before your next delivery is due. This means there’s no risk in giving Marley Spoon a try for just a week to see if it’s right for you. Just remember to cancel immediately if you definitely don’t want a second box (although this is often also discounted).
Exploring Marley Spoon’s Menu
Marley Spoon offer the most weekly variety of any meal kit available in Australia. They have a massive 70+ different meals available each week, with the options changing so you can have different meals every single week.
Since I first reviewed Marley Spoon, this variety has risen from 30 meals in 2020 up to the current 70 meal options. I actually think 70+ is too many options. I find that it takes a long time to scroll through and select which meals I want, which is not the time-saving convenience I’m looking for.
The menu always includes at least 8 vegetarian meals, as well as more than 10 gluten free meals. So, Marley Spoon is definitely suitable if you have a restricted diet.
To give you a feel of the type of meal available, here are some of the options I’ve seen when ordering before:
- Autumn Lamb Pie
- Mexican Sweet Potato Rice Bowl
- Pork ‘Dan Dan’ Noodles
- Eggplant and Lentil Moussaka
- Cheesy Green Gluten Free Pasta
One of the downsides I’ve noticed to such a large menu is that they can occasionally rely on some very simple recipes to fill out their menu. It’s worth picking your meals carefully to find those meals that you wouldn’t usually cook, or that have ingredients you can’t buy so easily.
The other downside is that it takes a long time to narrow your order down to just a few meals each week. A few times, I’ve had to cut out meals I really wanted to try. I guess this is a good problem to have though.
Each week, around 10 recipes are labelled ‘Premium’ and incur a small additional charge per portion. It’s worth being cautious when adding these meals as the costs can add up very quickly. I’ve seen some as high as +$4.99 per portion, so a family of 4 would pay an extra $20 for that meal.
Customising Marley Spoon Meals
Since I first reviewed Marley Spoon, they’ve added an incredible feature to their menu. You can now choose to change parts of some dishes so they suit your own individual preferences.
This can vary from switching meats or increasing portion sizes, to removing the gluten or high calorie component of a meal.
Some of these are included in your subscription price, while others might add a couple of dollars per serving. Here are two examples:
Not all of these swaps are great value, such as the lettuce cups being a much cheaper ingredient than flour tortillas in the Sticky Pork Tostadas recipe above. However, it does allow you to adjust recipes ‘your way’ and therefore reduce any ingredient waste.
Only about 20% of recipes have a customisable component. I’d love to see them make this more common.
The Marley Spoon Market
It’s not just meals on the Marley Spoon menu. You can also add ‘market’ ingredients to your order that get delivered in your weekly meal kit box.
A lot of these meals are from ChefGood’s range (who they acquired in late 2021). We’ve also reviewed ChefGood and thoroughly enjoyed their meals, so this fits in with Marley Spoon’s premium experience.
There are also some interesting options for easy snacks, side dishes, lunches, and desserts.
Marley Spoon have also partnered with Press’d, Naked Life, and Remedy to provide an interesting range of drinks.
Overall, prices are reasonable but it’s not uncommon to see products around 10% higher than supermarket pricing. This price difference can vary based on supermarket offers, so it’s worth checking before ordering from the marketplace.
Delivery Options
Marley Spoon have expanded their delivery network over the past few years, now servicing the metro and surrounding areas of Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Launceston, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Wollongong, Newcastle, the greater Perth region and Darwin.
Annoyingly, Marley Spoon force you to put your email address in before they’ll confirm the delivery days to your postcode. There’s no way round this that I’m aware of.
In line with their major competitors, Marley Spoon charge a flat $10.49 delivery fee with each weekly box. This is $0.50 more than getting an equivalent box from HelloFresh.
This cost can really add up when it’s paid every single week, so do make sure you plan it into your weekly food budget.
How much does Marley Spoon cost?
The price of Marley Spoon is mid-range within the Australian meal kit market, so it’s not the cheapest (or most expensive) meal kit available.
I conducted a full cost analysis of the market which you can read for Australia’s cheapest meal kit. On a cost basis, Marley Spoon are primarily competing with HelloFresh so I have included their costs as a useful comparison.
