Most of us want to eat healthy, but with a busy schedule, putting in all the work required to plan your weekly meals can be hard. From choosing which recipes to make to grocery shopping, preparing, and cooking foods, eating well takes a lot of work.
That’s where meal kit companies like HelloFresh and Trifecta come in. While these services are quite different, they share a commitment to making it easier to eat delicious, nutritious food at home. HelloFresh provides pre-measured ingredients to make quick, tasty dinners at home, while Trifecta specializes in macro-balanced, fully prepared meals.
With so many different offerings for meal kit delivery, which should you choose? In this comparison review, we compare Trifecta vs. HelloFresh to help you decide which company best suits your needs. Our team tested both services in 2024 to ensure we provide the most current information about what each has to offer.
Short on Time? Here’s why we think HelloFresh is Better
- A more affordable price point
- Lets you make fresh meals at home
- Great selection of add-ons through the HelloFresh Market
- Good diet support for low-calorie meals and certain dietary needs
- Easier to sub out ingredients since you cook it at home
What Is HelloFresh?
HelloFresh is one of the best-known and most popular meal kit companies in the US. They specialize in traditional meal kits where you pick weekly recipes from their massive menu of 100+ options and receive a box with pre-measured ingredients – right to your door!
Along with your ingredients, you receive a full-color, easy-to-follow recipe card, making it easy to prepare delicious dinners at home. In recent years, HelloFresh has also expanded its HelloFresh Market, adding add-on items for breakfast, snacks, and lunch, making it a one-stop shop to help you cut back on trips to the grocery store.
What Is Trifecta?
Trifecta provides macro-balanced, fully cooked meals for busy people who want to enjoy healthy, nutritious food without the work. Their service is geared towards athletes and active people, with many high-protein options and meal plans for popular diets like Keto, Whole30, Paleo, and more.
All meals for Trifecta arrive fully cooked and prepared by their chefs, providing balanced nutrition that supports overall well-being. They also offer nutritionist support right from their website or app to help you pick a plan that meets your goals.
Pros & Cons
HelloFresh Pros
- Huge menu with 100+ rotating weekly options
- Dietary support for low-calorie, protein-smart, vegetarian, carb-smart, and more
- High-quality, pre-measured ingredients for every meal
- HelloFresh Market with add-on options for breakfast, quick lunches, snacks and drinks
HelloFresh Cons
- Primarily traditional meal kits that require prep & cooking
- The menu includes Premium options that cost extra
Trifecta Pros
- Balanced macros for athletes and active people
- Fully cooked meals are ready in a flash
- High ingredient standards for organic, ethically sourced foods
- Nutritionist support from their website and app
Trifecta Cons
- Fully prepared meals offer less customization
- Portions can be a bit small for some appetites
Variety of Meal Plans
When choosing the right meal kit service for you, the types of meal plans are a big factor. You’ll want to find a company that provides the right portion and dietary options to meet your needs. Here’s how HelloFresh vs. Trifecta meal plans compare.
HelloFresh Meal Plans
With HelloFresh, you’ll pick from six dietary preferences when signing up to help personalize your plan. The options are a standard Meat & Veggies plan, a plant-based Veggie option, Family Friendly, Fit & Wholesome, Under 20 Minutes, or meals for a Pescatarian diet.
Picking your preferences will help HelloFresh recommend recipes each week, but you can still choose from the full menu of 100+ options.
After you pick your preference, simply choose how many meals you want per week and how many servings per meal! HelloFresh provides meals to serve 2, 4, or 6 people, with between 2 and 6 meals in your weekly box.
When choosing your weekly recipes, you can shop the HelloFresh market for add-on items like snacks, beverages, and quick lunch options.
Trifecta Meal Plans
Trifecta offers several plans tailored to specific popular diets. You can choose a plan from Clean, Paleo/Whole30, Keto, Plant-Based, and GLP-1 friendly, or opt for their Meal Prep option to get pre-prepped ingredients rather than prepared meals.
After choosing a plan, you can also decide how many entrees you want per week, from 7, 10, or 14. You will also choose whether to pick your own meals every week or go fully automated with the Chef’s Choice plan, where Trifecta’s chefs will pick your meals for you.
Meal Variety
HelloFresh Meal Variety
Between their standard menu and add-on options, HelloFresh has over 100+ meals for you to choose from every week. That might sound overwhelming, but the HelloFresh menu is clearly labeled to help you find meals that suit your tastes and dietary needs. It’s easy to browse for veggie, carb-smart, family-friendly, vegan, and calorie-smart options. You’ll even find tags for easy prep and easy cleanup.
Once you choose your main meals for the week, you can browse the HelloFresh market for add-ons with breakfast meals like egg bites, snacks, and more.
Trifecta Meal Variety
Trifecta’s meals are suited to meet specific dietary needs while also providing balanced macros. When browsing the weekly menu, you can look at the top meals or filter for a specific meal plan’s selection based on the diet you wish to follow – Keto, Paleo, Vegan, and more. There are usually about 10 options per week for most plans.
Trifecta also has a breakfast menu, where you can enjoy foods like egg scrambles and breakfast burritos if you add breakfast to your plan.
Our Experience – Is It Tasty?
Our team at The Meal Kit Review has plenty of experience with Triefecta and HelloFresh over the past six years. In 2024, we re-tested both services to check out the latest offerings and keep our knowledge up-to-date.
Overall, we were pleased with the delivery experience from both companies. We received clearly branded, insulated boxes from both HelloFresh and Trifecta that were well-organized and easy to unpack. HelloFresh’s quality pre-measured ingredients arrived pre-sorted per recipe, making it easy to pop right into the fridge. For Trifecta, the vacuum-sealed individual meals were stacked nicely inside the insulation and were a breeze to store.
When we dug into our box, we saw that HelloFresh’s produce and proteins were fresh and high-quality. All sauces and spice mixes were clearly labeled, and the full-color recipe cards were easy to follow.
With Trifecta, we can clearly see the whole food, veggies, proteins, and sides, even through the vacuum-wrapped packaging. We were impressed with the quality of the veggies, which were vibrant and fresh even though they were pre-cooked.
To be sure, we were pleased with our deliveries from both companies—but how do they compare in terms of taste?
Best Meal We Enjoyed From HelloFresh
We enjoyed the Sloppy Pork Joes with a Creamy Lime Slaw in our recent box. This dish puts a new twist on the comfort food classic, with BBQ-seasoned ground pork that gets simmered in a flavorful sauce. We appreciated the fresh pineapple and lime juice flavors added to the sloppy joe sauce. The creamy lime slaw added a nice lightness to complement the saucy sandwich, and the potato buns were the perfect vehicle to carry the dish. Overall, it was flavorful and satisfying without being overfilling.
Best Meal We Enjoyed from Trifecta
Our favorite from Trifecta was the Paleo Salmon with Blush Sauce. It features a perfectly portioned cut of grilled salmon and a side of delicious fresh veggies, topped with a light blush sauce. We were impressed with how well the fish reheated and how the carrots retained a nice crispness. The dish was flavorful despite being low in sodium, and the blush sauce added a nice touch of tomato flavor that nicely soaked into the diced potatoes. The serving felt small at first glance, but the dish ultimately left us satisfied.
Other Top Meals To Try
HelloFresh Meals
- Peanut Butter & Cherry Belgian Waffles with Jammy Honey Sauce & Apple
- Pan-Seared Sweet Soy Glazed Pork with Roasted Carrots and Broccoli
- Sizzling Hoisin Shrimp with Ginger-Scallion Rice & Roasted Green Beans
- Smashed Black Bean Tostadas with Green Pepper, Pico de Gallo & Lime Crema
- Smoky Brown Sugar Chicken Salad with Kale, Apple, Roasted Carrots, Sunflower Seeds & Honey Dijon Dressing
- Turkey Cutlets with Garlic-Sage Gravy plus Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Candied Pecans & Brussels Sprouts
- Bacon & Crispy Fried Onion Ramen with Spinach & Scallions
- Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cakes with Caramel Sauce
Trifecta Meals
- Egg Bites Heuvo Ranchero with Red Salsa and Beans
- Buffalo Style Chicken with Pasta and Fajita Mix
- Tofy with Lemon Sauce with Roasted Potatoes
- Dijon Mustard Pork with Green Beans and Squash
- Chicken Cacciatore with Potatoes and Green Beans
- Kung Pao Shrimp Stir-Fry with Avocado
- Peri Peri Turkey with Pasta and Broccoli
- Plant-Based California Burrito with a Guacamole Side
Style and Complexity of Dishes
HelloFresh
The HelloFresh menu features a variety of cuisines, from classics like ravioli and baked potato soup—which can also please picky eaters—to adventurous twists like Hoisin Turkey Tacos. Most dishes come together in around 30 minutes, but there are also quick 15-minute options, and some add-ons come ready to heat and eat!
With many global cuisines and familiar flavors to choose from, HelloFresh is a great option for family-friendly meals or to find something new. It’s easy to browse the menu labels to find foods that suit your dietary needs and preferences, and your selected plan can help provide weekly recommendations.
Trifecta
Trifecta dishes follow a format where you’ll enjoy protein, grain, carbohydrate, and fresh vegetables with various sauces and flavor combinations. Many Trifecta meals take inspiration from comfort food classics but with a healthy twist, and you’ll find a variety of cuisines like Italian and Asian-inspired meals.
The flavors are straightforward but tasty, and the microwavable meals are easy to warm up and enjoy with no prep required.
Quality of Ingredients Used In The Meals
Both HelloFresh and Trifecta use high-quality ingredients in their meals, but they have different approaches to sourcing.
With HelloFresh, the focus is on seasonal produce that tastes great, meaning that some, but not all, ingredients will be organic. Meats are sourced from partners that adhere to USDA guidelines, including hormone-free pork and chicken.
Trifecta’s ingredient standards emphasize using organic ingredients as often as possible, prioritizing building relationships with local, sustainable suppliers for meats and produce. They also have a list of banned ingredients that don’t meet their high standards and work to avoid high sodium and GMO items.
The Delivery Box
For many consumers, sustainability is a concern when choosing a meal kit company. Thankfully, both HelloFresh and Trifecta strive to use environmentally friendly practices with their delivery boxes.
HelloFresh uses boxes made from 100% recycled cardboard and can be easily recycled curbside. Their insulation liners and meal kit bags are fully recyclable and can even be composted. Some, but not all, of the included plastics can be recycled at special facilities.
With Trifecta, the fully cooked meals require less individual packaging than separate ingredients. Like HelloFresh, their delivery box is made from recycled materials and can be curbside recycled. Trifecta also uses biodegradable, curbside recyclable ClimaCell insulation, and the individual meal trays are made from recyclable plastic.
Subscribing & Managing Your Account
HelloFresh and Trifecta make it easy to sign up and fully manage your account online via their website or app. We will say that finding information before you subscribe is a bit easier with HelloFresh’s website than with Trifecta’s, but both sites are clearly laid out and easy to navigate.
Both meal services let you sign up and choose your plan and weekly meals right from your online account. With HelloFresh, you can easily skip weeks or cancel your subscription online. Trifecta requires an email to customer service to pause or cancel your subscription, but they respond quickly in our experience.
Because Trifecta is geared towards fitness enthusiasts, their app helps you track activity and macros and manage your meal plan account. This might be a perk for people looking to start or maintain a healthy lifestyle.
What Do Customers Say About HelloFresh and Trifecta?
To help give you some more perspectives, we browsed the community forum Reddit to find some honest customer feedback on HelloFresh and Trifecta meal delivery services. Here’s what customers have to say about their experience.
What Customers Say About HelloFresh
HelloFresh customers love the convenience of having fresh, pre-measured ingredients delivered every week and the variety of easy, flavorful meals.
Reddit user @Drunkmooses says, “There are several easy and super delicious meals. My husband and I get stoked on how good some of them are.”
Another Redditor loves the convenience, saying, “…now that I’m a HF veteran, I can’t imagine going back to full grocery shopping. The convenience of having delicious, well-seasoned meals brought to my door is fantastic.”
What Customers Say About Trifecta
Trifecta customers appreciate the balanced macros, convenience of the fully cooked meals, and quick responses from Customer Support.
Reddit user @SpeedofSL0TH likes that Trifecta meals are “low in carbs and calories” and notes that “they do last awhile because of how they’re vacuum packed.”
Another Redditor notes that Trifecta has great customer service, saying, “it took about one minute to activate a chat and cancel. No pressure, no fuss.”
Customer Support
HelloFresh and Trifecta provide great FAQ pages that answer many common customer questions about ingredients, delivery, and more. If you have additional questions, you can contact customer support.
HelloFresh Customer Support
HelloFresh offers 24/7 online chat with a virtual assistant bot, or you can call their customer service line during business hours.
Trifecta Customer Support
Trifecta offers live chat with a representative or customer service over the phone during business hours. They also provide a customer support email for after-hours questions.
Delivery Areas
Trifecta has a slightly larger delivery area and serves all 50 states. However, customers in Alaska and Hawaii will need to pay an extra shipping fee.
HelloFresh delivers to the continental United States and to select zip codes in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Anchorage, Alaska.
With both companies, you’ll enter your zip code during the signup process to ensure they can ship to your area.
Bottom Line: Our Winner Is HelloFresh!
HelloFresh and Trifecta may be meal kit delivery companies, but they target different customers. HelloFresh offers traditional meal kits at home with various meal styles, whereas Trifecta specializes in athlete-friendly, fully prepared meals. That said, we think HelloFresh appears ahead in this face-off between the two meal kits.
The HelloFresh service has a more budget-friendly price point, and its large menu has a great variety of options to suit picky eaters and the health-conscious alike. Plus, with the add-on options, HelloFresh gets close to helping you skip the grocery entirely—a win in our book!
