Meal kits or planning it yourself?

A meal kit takes away a decision that leaves many people exhausted in the evening: What should I cook, and what do I need to buy for it? Recipes, portions and ingredients come together, often in exactly the quantity needed. Anyone with little time who dislikes planning gains something that can't be measured in euros.

Then there's the choice. A box brings dishes you wouldn't have thought of yourself, and ingredients you wouldn't otherwise have bought. For households that want to cook with variety, that's a real advantage – even if "variety" here simply means: different from your own standard.

The real gain is the decision that gets made for you. Anyone who has made decisions all day doesn't want to choose between five recipes in the evening. A box takes that choice away – that's a service, not a trick.

The price of a meal kit pays for more than groceries. It pays for the recipe, the portioning, the cold chain, the packaging and the logistics to your door. That's not an accusation, but an explanation. Anyone who wants to compare apples with apples has to factor in these services.

A self-planned shop is usually cheaper than a meal kit. That's partly because you buy the ingredients without an intermediary and decide the quantities yourself. How much cheaper depends on the dish, the store and your shopping habits – which is why we don't give a number.

Fairness also means: packaging is not a unique selling point of meal kits. In supermarkets, too, much comes in plastic wrap and cardboard. Anyone who uses packaging as an argument against the box has to apply it to their own shopping as well.

A meal kit doesn't know that you still have rice, oil and spices at home. It delivers what the recipe needs, and you buy those items along with it. So anyone who already has a full kitchen pays for part of what's already in the cupboard.

This is where a pantry-based plan comes in: first you see what you have, then you add what's missing. That makes the shop smaller, but not automatically cheaper – anyone who buys more fresh food spends more elsewhere. The difference is the direction: the box fills a gap, the pantry plan uses what's already there.

That's why the pantry plan isn't a cheaper clone of the box. It follows a different logic: not "What do I need for this dish?" but "What can I cook with what I have?" For households with a full cupboard, that's a bigger difference than the price.

Many meal-kit boxes rely on a subscription and fixed order deadlines. If you miss a week, you still receive a box or have to pause in time. That's no secret, but it's a difference you only notice when everyday life gets in the way.

Fettunta works differently: no subscription, no minimum term, no cancellation notice period. You get in touch when you want a plan, and stop when you no longer want one. This isn't moral superiority, but a different design – and for some households the decisive point.

If you don't feel like planning in the evening, if you want to try new dishes, and if exact portions matter more to you than price, a meal-kit box is a sensible solution. Even if you shop rarely and keep little in stock, a box saves you trips.

Planning yourself works better when your kitchen is already stocked, when you want to decide quantities yourself, and when you don't need the same routine every week. Both can coexist: a box for the week when things are busy, and your own plan for the quiet week.

And anyone who has tried both often finds that the truth is unspectacular: the box is better in stressful weeks, your own plan in calm ones. That's not a weakness, but a division of labor.

The decision isn't a matter of taste, but a calculation with three variables: time, money, and waste. Anyone who honestly writes down all three usually finds out quickly which solution suits them. What matters is not playing the variables off against each other – a meal-kit box isn't bad because it costs money, and planning yourself isn't better because it takes effort.

What a plan from your pantry looks like is explained under How it works. If you want to understand the method behind it, read Creating a weekly plan.

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