Marley Spoon sends recipe boxes since 2014, is situated in Leyton, London and is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, the USA and Australia. 3 meals for 2 people currently cost £45.

Choice

You can choose from 7 recipes and filter by food preference (veg, spicy, or different kinds of meat and fish). You can order various amounts (2 or 3 meals for 2 people, 1 for 8, and variations in between). They don’t have a vegetarian box as such but they always have enough vegetarian meals to choose from.

Convenience

This is a subscription service and designed to automatically get you a new box every week. You can cancel any time, but this is the only service which won’t let you do that conveniently from their website. You will have to write them an email. Please beware that you won’t have any access to your account anymore after that.
The delivery times are most convenient. You can choose delivery on either Wednesdays or Fridays, either between 8-10am in the mornings, 6-8pm or 8-10pm in the evenings. The parcel is not tracked.

The box and its contents when it arrived

Eco-friendliness

Some of the ingredients are organic. They claim to try to source most ingredients locally but unfortunately a couple of them are from very far away. In my case the tarragon was from Israel and the Rosemary from Kenya. And those are just examples from the ingredients I know the origin of. That’s just a shame and seriously unnecessary as both grow fine in the UK for most of the year.
The ingredients are packed per recipe (except what goes into the fridge) which is convenient on the one hand but not necessary and wasteful on the other. But they will take the wool and cooling packs back when you send them back at their expense. Most of the rest is recyclable.

Transparency

It is not clear where most of the ingredients are coming from or what is organic and what isn’t. They don’t list any sub ingredients either. They list everything else that is necessary, though. You can even see the whole recipe beforehand.
They will also send you unsolicited news emails until you unsubscribe.

Food

The recipe cards are divided into 6 steps and are accompanied by photos of each of those steps. Although not necessary, it is helpful and let’s you check if you’re doing everything correctly.
The Salmon with Tarragon Yoghurt and Sweet Potato Rosti was unfortunately just about edible. The tarragon and lemon were way too dominant, the “rosti” didn’t deserve its name and took a long time to prepare only to basically come out very close to mashed potatoes, and all of those flavours didn’t even go well together. The Orecchiette with Chicken, Rocket and Caramelised Tomatoes was okay but just bland. And the Bok Choy and Pepper Stir-Fry with Sesame Sauce was not great either. The sauce could have been nice if only I’ve had a blender to puree the sesame. They sent me the wrong type of mushrooms and the recipe had a questionable order of cooking things which resulted in some overcooked ingredients.

Before (top) and after (bottom) of the three dishes of this box: Salmon with Tarragon Yoghurt and Sweet Potato Rosti, Orecchiette with Chicken, Rocket and Caramelised Tomatoes and Bok Choy and Pepper Stir-Fry with Sesame Sauce (from left to right)

Taste

2.33/5
(Please note, this rating is obviously subjective and only based on 3 recipes.)

Verdict

The bad habit of getting native ingredients from far away and the fact that I didn’t like any of the dishes mean that I cannot recommend Marley Spoon. The ingredients themselves were good but the recipes (and the sources) were not meeting my expectations. I don’t think I will buy from them again.

Update 11 Nov 2015

Caution! Marley Spoon keeps on sending me their unsolicited newsletter emails despite having unsubscribed three times already (and obviously never consented to it in the first place).

Articles in this series

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