The Original Supper Box sends recipe boxes since 2013, is situated in West Sussex and is only available in the UK. 3 meals for 2 people currently cost £38.

Choice

The types of meal boxes are standard, “BBQ”, “vegetarian” and “vegan”. You can choose 3 or 5 meals for 1-6 people from a list of 10 meals. They are the only service which offers boxes for 2- or 3-course meals and one of the very few which offers boxes for singles.

Convenience

You don’t need to subscribe to anything, the recipe box orders are all one-offs. You can choose your delivery day to be any day between Tuesday and Friday (9am-6pm) and need to order by 10am the day before. You can track the parcel online.

The box and its contents when it arrived

Eco-friendliness

Unlike most other services, the food is not organic and they don’t re-use the boxes and ice packs. Most material is recyclable, though. The ingredients are packed per recipe, which is convenient on the one hand but not necessary and wasteful on the other.

Transparency

They are very clear about how everything works. The information about the recipes includes skill levels, nutrients and others, and could be improved by adding the ingredients upfront. They list lots of their suppliers on their website. But when it comes to the actual ingredients it’s mostly not clear where it’s coming from. They don’t list any sub ingredients either.

Food

This was the only service which prompted me to google words on their recipes multiple times. I found the quality of some of their ingredients questionable. Most of the ingredients looked as if I could get the very same in the supermarket down the street (which is not bad as such but just not as good as all the other services). The Pancetta & Mushroom Fusilli were okay and a bit too simple. The Smoked Salmon Hash was also okay and not very inspirational, but the peas were unfortunately not fresh (despite being the season for them). The Honey Soaked Peanut, Pak Choi & Mushroom Stir Fry was not to my taste at all and I threw half of it away. I wondered if the peanuts were the right kind as the recipe was only talking about “peanuts” while the variety I got was seasoned (which is the one moment where a list of sub ingredients would have been helpful).

Before (top) and after (bottom) of the three dishes of this box: Pancetta & Mushroom Fusilli, Smoked Salmon Hash, Honey Soaked Peanut, Pak Choi & Mushroom Stir Fry (from left to right)

Taste

2.67/5
(Please note, this rating is obviously subjective and only based on 3 recipes.)

Verdict

Not bad as such, but not great either. Mediocre ingredients, not even partly organic and bad recycling habits mean that I cannot recommend The Original Supper Box. I don’t think I will be buying anything from them again, except maybe a 3-course recipe box (“Dinner Party Box”). That sounds especially worth a try when you have many guests to feed.

Articles in this series

• Trialling recipe boxes: Introduction
• Trialling recipe boxes: The Original Supper Box (this article)
• Trialling recipe boxes: Riverford
• Trialling recipe boxes: Marley Spoon
• Trialling recipe boxes: Gousto
• Trialling recipe boxes: HelloFresh
• Trialling recipe boxes: Abel & Cole
• Trialling recipe boxes: Mindful Chef
• Trialling recipe boxes: Conclusion