This page explains how the brand guides, comparison pages and discount pages on Too Many Foodboxes are put together: what we check, what we count as a test, and how we keep commercial links from steering the advice.
First-hand tests and research-based guides
We use two labels, and every brand page shows one of them near the top.
- First-hand test: we ordered the box or meals ourselves, cooked or heated them, and wrote down what arrived, how it was packed and how it went. The page says when and where the test took place.
- Research-based guide: we did not order the service for this page. The guide is built from the provider’s own menus, prices, delivery terms and subscription conditions, compared against other UK services.
Tests carried out in the Netherlands for our sister site Foodboxen.nl are labelled as such. They can say something about a brand’s packaging or recipe style, but UK menus, prices and delivery are handled separately and can differ.
At the moment most UK pages are research-based. We would rather say that plainly than write as if we had eaten every box.
What we compare
We do not give star ratings. Taste is personal and a single score hides the trade-offs that actually decide whether a service suits you. Instead, every provider is described on the same points:
- Type of service: recipe kit, flavour kit, prepared meals, fruit and veg, or a specialist box. These are different purchases and we do not rank them against each other on price alone.
- Normal cost: the recurring box price, the number of people and meals it covers, the price per serving and the delivery charge.
- Household fit: which household sizes are offered, and whether one person can order sensibly without paying for leftovers.
- Choice and diets: how many recipes or meals there are each week, and whether a diet is a real plan or just a filter on a general menu.
- Flexibility: skipping, pausing, cancelling and whether one-off orders are possible.
- Practical limits: delivery areas, minimum orders, storage, packaging and anything else that commonly causes problems.
How we check prices
Prices are taken from the provider’s own website for a new customer building a normal order. The main figure is always the regular price, not the price after a first-box discount. Where we can, we compare a box for two people with three meals, because nearly every recipe box offers it. Delivery charges are included in the price per serving, since a cheap box with an expensive delivery fee is not a cheap box.
Every price shows the date it was checked. If we cannot verify a price, we leave it out rather than show an old one. The background to this is in how we communicate meal box prices.
Discounts and offers
Introductory offers are listed separately from normal prices, with their conditions: which boxes they apply to, whether they require a subscription, and when we last saw them working. A discount page covers the current offer and nothing else. It links to the brand guide for everything about the service itself.
A generous first-box deal is never the reason we recommend a service. The box has to make sense at its normal price.
How often facts are rechecked
Details that change often, such as prices, offers and menu sizes, are rechecked before a page is updated and whenever a reader or provider reports a change. Comparison pages show the date the provider list was last checked. Slower-moving facts, such as household sizes or delivery areas, are reviewed when we update the page as a whole.
Services that stop trading
Food box companies close, merge and rebrand regularly. When we cannot confirm that a service still takes orders in the UK, we remove it from comparison tables and recommendations and take away any links to order. If the old page still helps people who search for the brand, it stays online with a clear note about its status.
Affiliate links and independence
We earn money through affiliate links: if you order through one, the provider may pay us a commission, at no extra cost to you. Services with and without a commercial relationship are described in the same way and against the same points. Providers do not see or approve our pages before they are published, and a commission does not buy a better position in a comparison or a softer description of a service’s limits.
Spotted a mistake or an outdated detail? Send it to us via the contact page and we will look into it. More about the people behind the site is on the About Too Many Foodboxes page.