Hungry Harvest Review 2024: Is It Any Good?

Overview

Hungry Harvest is a delivery service focusing on rescued farm-fresh fruits and veggies that weren’t deemed “pretty” enough by major grocery chains. It also offers some meats, eggs, dairy products, and certain pantry items like grains and snacks.

There’s no question that Hungry Harvest is great for the environment, as the food it salvages would otherwise be wasted. In this article, you’ll find out everything you need to know about it and what exactly you can expect from “rescued food”. You’ll also find out if it’s the right service for you and if helping the environment translates into fresh and tasty meals.

My team and I have researched and analyzed everything about this company, so you don’t have to take the risk. Overall, I’ve found the service to be at least worth a look, although it’s not as convenient as other delivery services. Every delivery saves around 10 lbs of food from being wasted, it offers both organic and standard veggies. You also get access to tons of add-ons and extras.

Hungry Harvest’s Menu: Focus on “Rescued” Produce

Meal Options: Fruits, Veggies, and Much More

The main things that Hungry Harvest focuses on are organic or standard fruits and veggies. But that’s definitely not to say that that’s all you get. Hungry Harvest offers a ton of different options for sides, snacks, and more.

You’ll find there to be lots of other different categories of items like Seasonal Goodies, Bakery, Beverages, Dairy & Eggs, Pantry, Proteins, Sauces & Spreads, and Snacks. Some specific items you can expect to find include cheeses and yogurt, granola bars, chips, nuts, chocolates, sweets and desserts, beans, grains, pastas, coffee, tea, kombucha, olive oil, and much more. It can quite possibly be a one-stop shop for anything you need aside from meat.

For those who enjoy ready-to-eat items, you’ll find a decent selection of soups, spreads, risotto, Potato and Truffle Pierogies, and Thai Dumplings. These are all prepared and can simply be heated up and eaten right away.

Hungry Harvest offers what it calls Mini, Full, or Super Harvest boxes, which are different-sized fruit and veg boxes. These are what sets it apart from other grocery-type vendors. You can pick either the standard or organic boxes, depending on your budget and preferences. Naturally, the organic ones tend to be slightly pricier than the standard, but you do get very high-quality items in exchange.

If you’re wondering what you get in a box, the Mini boxes come with 1 type of green veggie, 3 types of regular veggies, and 2 to 3 types of fruit. The site states that the Mini box provides just about enough fruits and veggies for 1 to 2 people per week. If you’re looking for a service that delivers complete, veggie-forward meals, Hungry Harvest isn’t the best choice. I’d recommend Purple Carrot instead.

Customization: You Can Personalize Your Hungry Harvest Box

You can also customize each Harvest box. Each will come with standard items selected, but other options are available if you don’t like something. This means you can hand-select the produce you want to receive at no additional cost. To me, this makes the price even more worth it, as you’re not just getting generic produce. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of not knowing what’s going to arrive in the box.

During the signup process, you can let Hungry Harvest know what you want to exclude or include more of. You can choose up to 6 items for each category. This helps you only get the items you like the most. But again, the Harvest boxes are customizable anyway, so don’t worry too much about those, specifically.

In terms of groceries, there are several protein options to choose from. You can get Organic Tempeh, Baked Falafel Balls, Beyond Burger, Beyond Hot Italian Sausage, Breakfast Jack Sausage Patties, Chik’n Cutlets, Classic Jack Meat Balls, Tofu, and Teriyaki Tofu Bites.

Last, but certainly not least, there are several dietary preferences. When you click on a dietary preference in the top-right-hand side of the main menu bar, you’ll effectively be filtering all items Hungry Harvest offers in that particular category. I found that to be extremely helpful, so I recommend giving that a try. Dietary preferences include Dairy- and Gluten-Free, Kosher, No Sugar Added, Non-GMO, Organic, and Vegan.

Many of Hungry Harvest’s items will have to be prepped and cooked yourself, especially the Harvest boxes, but many items already come prepared. It’s completely up to you which items you like, and how you want to choose ones for your deliveries.

Hungry Harvest’s Menu at a Glance 

Unboxing: It All Depends on the Type of Products You Order

What you get in your delivery box looks exactly the same as if you were to go to the grocery store, buy your items, and bring them home in one of their boxes. The boxes aren’t insulated – however, when temperatures rise during spring and summer, Hungry Harvest does throw in ice packs to help keep things cool until you can tend to your delivery box. While the temperatures are colder during autumn, winter, and early spring, no ice packs are included since they wouldn’t serve any real purpose anyway.

All your ingredients come in the box in an organized fashion and packaged ingredients are clearly labeled. If you buy spinach, for example, from the grocery store, it’ll clearly say spinach on the packaging. The same can be said for Hungry Harvest. However, items like loose produce (apples, pears, broccoli, etc) aren’t labeled. You’ll have to figure out what’s what on your own.

In terms of best-before dates, the packaged goods will have this clearly written somewhere on them. Again, for loose items like fruits and veggies, there’s no best-before date. You’ll have to use your own best judgment in that case.

You’ll sometimes also find “freeze-by” dates, which are very similar to use-by. That just means that you should think about either consuming these goods before this date, or freezing them for later consumption. You can freeze items in their packaging without needing to transfer them to anything else.

You’ll find that many of Hungry Harvest’s delivery materials are recyclable. This definitely applies to the delivery boxes themselves. Within each box, however, you’ll find different types of materials. What recyclable materials you’ll get depends on what you order, and what’s currently available to order in the first place. 

Cooking With Hungry Harvest: This Also Depends on Your Order

Since Hungry Harvest generally doesn’t provide meals, you’ll be on your own coming up with dinner ideas (unlike meal kit services like HelloFresh or Green Chef that send portioned ingredients for specific recipes). There really is no limit to what you can make with your ingredients. However, it does offer several ways to access some great recipes if you feel stuck or need some inspiration.

It doesn’t offer recipe suggestions on the website, but there’s a Facebook community you can join that shares tons of recipes and ideas for how to use your Harvest boxes. Ultimately, what you can make largely depends on the ingredients you order – and, of course, your creativity.

There are a few items you can order that are ready-to-eat, however. These items require minimal prep and clean up like the Hummus, soups, risotto, and apple strudel and crumbles. You can mostly find the exact same type of items at your local grocery store, so there isn’t much of a difference here.

Prices: Similar to Prices in Grocery Stores

You can find a whole bunch of other items like add-ons, snacks, desserts, dairy and eggs, proteins, and pantry items. You’ll find that most of the prices are quite similar to what you’d find at your local grocery store. Prices for these items range from around $2.99 for bread to around $19.99 for produce storage bags (and more). Again, since there’s an abundance of different items, you’ll find a pretty large range of prices.

Shipping costs $4.99 – but if you spend at least $29.99, shipping is free. That’s not a bad shipping fee if you ask me since I’ve seen higher ones from places like Walmart. Obviously, the selection isn’t as large as what you’d find at Walmart, but the low shipping fee makes up for that.

Though there isn’t a refund policy per se, you can contact the support team if you have any issues with your items or delivery. It promises to at least hear you out, and work with you to get you a credit for a future order if you’re not satisfied. I thought that this is a nice touch, and Hungry Harvest definitely isn’t obliged to offer something like this.

Shipping & Delivery: Streamlined but Not Very Flexible

Hungry Harvest doesn’t deliver to the entire US – so make sure to check here whether you’re eligible to get deliveries. At the time of this article’s publication, it only delivers to Maryland, Washington, DC, Greater Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey, Northern Delaware, South Florida, The Triangle Area, Charlotte in North Carolina, the Detroit Metro Area, Delaware, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

Currently, Hungry Harvest chooses your delivery day on your behalf depending on your exact location. You’re not able to choose your own date at this time, either. The exact day will depend on where you are – but deliveries usually take about 2 to 3 business days to arrive from the time you place your order.

Again, currently, it’s not possible to reschedule your delivery. Delivery dates are limited and are chosen at the time of adding items to your shopping cart. This may change down the road – but it’s nice to know that you don’t actually have to be home to accept your delivery.

How Hungry Harvest Works (Step by Step Guide)

Hungry Harvest delivers fresh produce like fruits and veggies along with many other types of groceries. Signing up is as simple as heading to the website, looking at the menu, and adding any items you like to your cart.

How to Sign Up (Just 5 Simple Steps)

Signing up for Hungry Harvest is pretty simple, especially if you have experience with sites like Walmart or other grocery delivery services.

How to Sign Up for Hungry Harvest

1. Click Shop Now: From here, you can select anything you like and add it to your cart. Once you’ve added everything you want to your cart, you can click on Join in the top-right of your screen.

2. From here, you’ll have to register with your address: Once you’ve clicked Join, you can proceed to register. Start by checking if delivery is available in your area by entering your address. Once that’s confirmed, move on to the next step.

3. Enter your personal information and a password: Enter your personal details like your name, email address, and phone number, and choose a password.

4. Answer a few more questions: Here, you’ll be able to opt in or out of the email newsletter, provide your delivery instructions, and information about your cooking skill level and what ingredients you like and don’t like.

5. Enter your payment information: Last but not least, choose your favorite payment method, enter the details, and proceed to the checkout screen. At this time, you can also enter a promo code if you happen to have one.

Managing Your Subscription

You can then log back into your account dashboard at any time to manage your subscription.

From within your account dashboard, you can control things like the frequency of your deliveries. The options for you here are every week or every other week (weekly, or biweekly). You can also choose to add things to your next delivery or skip certain items.

Customer Service: Hungry Harvest’s Support Is Excellent

My experience with Hungry Harvest customer service was really positive.

Initially, the live chatbot promised a response “within a few hours”, but I actually received a response from a live chat agent in no more than 2 minutes. That’s a classic case of underpromise and overdeliver, and it was definitely welcome. The live chat agent confirmed that, while it doesn’t deliver everywhere in the US as of yet, it’s taking any growing demand into consideration.

In terms of contact methods for Hungry Harvest, you have a few options. My favorite is live chat which is available from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm, and on weekends from 8 am to 4 pm EST. You can also contact someone by email, or the Report An Issue form if there is some sort of problem with your order or delivery.

If there's a problem with your order or the food you get, you can contact their support team. They promise to give you a credit for your next purchase. But sadly, you can't get a refund to your original payment method.

If you sign up for the service and realize it’s not for you, cancelation couldn’t be easier. You can do so directly from within your account dashboard on the website. All you’ll need to keep in mind is to make sure to do so before your cutoff time. The cutoff time is different for every customer and order – but you can check this from your account dashboard quite easily.

How Hungry Harvest Compares to Other Meal Delivery Services

• Hungry Harvest vs. Hungryroot: Hungryroot is quite similar to Hungry Harvest, but it does one thing much better. For instance, Hungryroot offers an eclectic variety of chef-inspired recipes that’ll help you craft delicious meals without thinking about it. Since Hungry Harvest doesn’t really offer any recipes, you might consider Hungryroot instead, as it takes away a bit of the headache of coming up with meals from scratch.

• Hungry Harvest vs. Home Chef: Home Chef is another good alternative to Hungry Harvest, though it’s a slightly different business model. It offers a weekly menu of meal kits and prepared meals, along with some great ways to customize your meals. Though not as large a selection as Hungry Harvest, Home Chef’s selection of grocery-style items is quite similar and definitely a better option if you want to cook at home but don’t want to come up with recipe ideas.

The Bottom Line: Is Hungry Harvest Worth It?

If you’re looking for high-quality produce, dairy, eggs, pantry items, and a bunch of extras that taste great and help save food from being wasted, Hungry Harvest is a great service. This is especially true if you don’t mind fruits and veggies that may not show up in perfect visual condition like you would find at Whole Foods or other high-end grocery chains.

However, you won’t find much (if anything), in the form of prepared meals or specific meal kits. It truly does encourage you to order salvaged and rescued grocery items and prepare meals using your own recipes. If you’re looking for some help with recipes, I do like that it offers a few of its own that you can follow if you don’t want to end up having to think of recipes all on your own.

FAQ

Can you cancel Hungry Harvest and are you obliged to remain a customer?

Yes – you can cancel Hungry Harvest at any time by simply emailing [email protected]. You’re in no way obliged to remain a customer for any longer than you wish. However, if you’re interested in getting recurring shipments, you can opt to have new deliveries shipped every week or every other week.

Is Hungry Harvest cheaper than grocery store?

For some items, you’ll notice prices are cheaper than whatever local grocery store you usually shop at, and some prices will be higher. That’s just the nature of the industry. I can’t give you specific numbers, however, since it’ll largely depend on where you live, the cost of living, and the quality of the grocery you usually visit.

What I can tell you is that Harvest Boxes generally start at around $10.99 for the mini box (which is good for 2 people for about a week).

Is Hungry Harvest organic?

Yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact, you can choose either the standard Harvest Boxes which include non organic fruits and veggies, or you can opt for the organic Harvest Boxes instead. Either way, you’ll get exactly what you want, and you won’t have to bust your budget if you don’t want to.