On Hungry Harvest, 8 months in
I've been a Hungry Harvest customer for a little over ¾ of a year now, so I thought it would be a good time to do an update post about it all.
What's Hungry Harvest?
Quick recap: Hungry Harvest is an East Coast-based company that rescues excess/ugly produce and gets it into the hands of people who want to eat it.
They deliver it to customers' doorsteps, and they also donate and sell deeply discounted produce to people in need (including those in food deserts in cities).
I love, love, love what Hungry Harvest is doing.
I mean, they're rescuing food that would otherwise be wasted and they're helping to feed people in need. What more could I ask??
Where do they deliver?
Right now, Hungry Harvest delivers in Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, Philly, southeastern PA, South Jersey, and South Florida, but they are busy expanding.
So, if they're not available in your area yet, sign up and get yourself on their waiting list, because they use the waiting list to help them decide where to expand!
How has the produce quality been?
Overall, great! A lot of the produce I've received has been excess, which means it's first quality but that a grower had too much to sell.
So, that stuff is exactly like what I'd get at the grocery store.
The ugly produce has been unusual, yes, but delicious.
Sometimes I get huge carrots or tiny avocados or grapefruits with funky coloring, but these are just cosmetic problems.
And cosmetic problems are no reason to throw food away!
If you do get a bruised or rotten item in your box, you can just let Hungry Harvest know. They try never to let this happen, but sometimes an item slips through their quality control, and they'll want to make it right for you.
What if I get an item I hate?
Well, Hungry Harvest lets you put things on your "never" list. So, I never have to worry that my box will be full of eggplants and okra.
<shudder>
AND, you can also customize your box for a small fee.
So, if you get your heads up email with the list of product for the week and you're all, "GAH! I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE CARROTS RIGHT NOW.", you can just log in to your account and change it up.
Does Hungry Harvest only sell produce?
That's their main jam, but they do also sell some other foods that you can add on to your delivery.
For instance, they sell white eggs (farmers have a hard time selling white eggs because people think the brown ones are healthier) and surplus bread (fresh, but the bakers just had too much).
And at the time of this writing, they're selling Organic Valley cheese, which has an expiration date of mid-December, which is too close for a grocery store's comfort.
Isn't this stuff more expensive than produce at Aldi?
Sometimes, yes. I've done some price comparisons, and usually the total price of my box contents is just slightly more than the same items would be at Aldi.
BUT.
By purchasing from Hungry Harvest, I'm helping save produce from the landfill and I'm helping to feed hungry local families. Totally worth paying more than I would at Aldi.
Plus, there's this:
Getting a produce box makes me eat more produce, guaranteed.
Left to myself, I will tend to purchase less produce than I will with a delivery box. And I will tend to stay in my comfort zone too.
I'll buy spinach instead of kale and broccoli instead of Brussels sprouts. And I probably won't buy beets at all.
But when Hungry Harvest sends me kale, broccoli, and beets, I'll be darned if I'm not going to do my very best to cook and eat those foods. I'm not about to waste what Hungry Harvest has rescued!
The Hungry Harvest box gently pushes me to work more produce (especially more veggies) and more variety into my cooking, and I really, really appreciate that.
So, there you have it! I'm still a very happy customer, 8 months in, and I give Hungry Harvest a huge thumbs up.
Ready to give it a try?
Sign up with Hungry Harvest and use the code FRUGALGIRL5 (expires June 1, 2018) to get $5 off of your first harvest.
After I signed up with Hungry Harvest, they asked me to help spread the word as a Hungry Harvest ambassador (I'm officially a #hungryharvesthero!), and of course I said yes. This post is not sponsored, though, all the words are my own, and I do not get credit/payment if you sign up with Hungry Harvest.
Hi Kristen! I don't think the link you put up for Hungry Harvest works.
I'm sorry-Hungry Harvest seems to be having some problems with that link today! I put up another one that should work, and as long as you use the code, you should still get $5 off.
Yay to eating more variety of veggies! I now I always buy the same vegetables at the grocery store: broccoli, carrots, avocado, onion, and sweet potato. They're not yet in my area, but I'm excited for their expansion!
The link isn't working for me. Do you have a direct link to sign up? Thanks!
Patiently waiting for Hungry Harvest to expand into Ohio!
I think the link is broken
I love Hungry Harvest for all of the same reasons you posted!!! I've been able to come up with some creative meals that I would not have otherwise. I've even had a few friends sign up as well!
I really want to try Hungry Harvest, but I'm betting it will be a while before they reach Idaho. If you ever hear of similar companies in other geographic regions, please let us know!
I love Hungry Harvest for all the reasons you gave. Each week I do a search on-line, at least once, type in the different vegetables I have and up pops recipes using 2 or more of the vegetables. This is very handy when you have vegetables you are not familiar with or need to try something new.
This has really interested me in Hungry Harvest. Some years ago we had a very bad experience with a local farm delivering very expensive very poor quality produce at the end of their delivery day. We felt we were being "Had".
Now we are ready to try again if Hungry Harvest comes our way.
Oh, and did you receive the books?
I may of missed this but do they deliver to you house or have a pick up location?
They deliver right to your door!
Thank you for the honest review! Looks like Hungry Harvest is active where I live too (DC metro).
My MIL and hubby usually buy groceries from the Asian stores where they can touch and choose what they like. I feel like it might be an uphill battle to convince them to switch to Hungry Harvest. But I image the service is great for a lot of families! 🙂
Imperfect Produce is very similar, only on the West Coast. (and Chicago soon!)
Kristen, I love that you use HH and have shared the benefits with your readers. As you have said many times, the frugal choice is not always the "cheapest". I am hopeful that spending a little bit more for this type of food option will allow our country to maintain good food options in the future.
For those not in the Hungry Harvest area, check to see if similar services are available. In southern California we have Imperfect Produce which is the same concept. https://www.imperfectproduce.com/
I signed up a while back and am (im) patiently waiting for them to reach North Florida!
What a great idea! I've thought about food waste a lot - recently rewatched "Just Eat It" on Amazon Prime. Which led me to a book American Wasteland by Jonathan Bloom.
We don't have it in my area. We have a local charity called Backyard Bounty that uses volunteers to pick excess fruit from people's trees, and the food gets donated to the food bank. We have a local group with a community garden that donates food to the food bank. My neighbor likes to go to the farmer's market right at the end - gets deeply discounted produce (esp tomatoes) that the farmers aren't going to be able to sell.
I suspect that the 99 cent store produce is "seconds" or nearing ripeness or excess, based on the cost. I think it's a great idea to save the waste.
Dear Hungry Harvest, please come to Richmond, VA!!!!
Two thoughts:
1) I am totally cool with you not liking okra because I honestly want all it for myself. 😉
2) I would pay slightly more for HH over Aldi too because even though I love Aldi, the produce is not always the freshest. The sweet potatoes are often soft in the middle, and I have to check bags of string beans and asparagus closely or I will come home with bad veggies. I'll take "ugly" produce over that any day.
I think produce must vary so much from Aldi to Aldi. The Aldi I shop at is the highest-performing Aldi in the area in terms of volume, and I think produce just does not have time to go bad at this store because it cycles through so quickly.
Ohhh, I didn't realize they were rejected fruits and veggies until now. What a wonderful idea! How many of us have seen those news stories about wasted produce just going to the landfill? Darn, I just checked, and they aren't available here (yet). Thanks for spreading the news about Hungry Harvest!
I'm not sure they are put in landfills....might just be a marketing ploy. I used to work in the food industry and believe me, rarely is anything ever thrown out. If anything the pig farmers at the very least will buy about anything and turn it into bacon. I don't find what I'm seeing being a great deal with HH. I think a good way to compare costs would be to buy a duplicate at a local grocery store. Delivery would have to not be added in because lets face it we all are at a grocery store at least once a week.
I do believe it is often left to rot or send to landfills: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/13/us-food-waste-ugly-fruit-vegetables-perfect
I guess I'm not trustful of anything the Guardian has to say to be honest bc of their agenda. But there are worse things in life than buying and eating veggies. So if it works for you go for it.
From this USA Today article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/07/02/food-waste-could-tax-breaks-new-labels-and-ugly-produce-fix-it/444032001/
"Establishing restrictions on the amount of waste going to landfills is the toughest step to take: Only five states currently have such restrictions, and four of them target only the largest producers."
Apparently the EPA is working on strategies to reduce the amount of waste producers send to landfills, which would seem to indicate that this is actually a thing that happens, sadly.
And they'd like producers to do what you mentioned...feed excess to animals, at least.
From the same article: "In 2015, the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture set a national goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030. To achieve it, the EPA laid out a broad strategy, which includes producing less food, using excess food to feed people in need, feeding scraps to livestock, using organic waste to produce energy or compost, and disposing of food in landfills and incinerators only as a last resort."
Also they act like the produce being fed to cattle is a bad thing...not at all. The first pic they showed was of watermelon being fed to cattle. I just don't believe that is wasteful in any way.
Like I said it is not thrown in landfills as they might like to lead one to believe.
I just realized they deliver to your door! That is a huge bonus! We are about as far away from the hungry harvest delivery area as can be......bummer. Sounds like a great company and after googling it I see they got a deal on Shark Tank.....cool!
I wish HH would come to Texas! I didn't realize they sometimes offer bread and cheese too! Yumm!
For West coast crew try Ugly Produce. Very similar idea and available in major West coast cities 🙂
We signed up for hungry harvest and tried it for about 2 months, and sadly, we did not have the same experience as you. We received lots of bruised produce, and we had a few things go bad unexpectedly quickly! They do have great customer service, and always added on some extra produce the next delivery to make up for some of the issues we had. However, we ended up canceling.
One of the things I LOVED about them, was the e-mail mid week, with what would be in my box! That way I wouldn't pick up at the grocery store something that was coming on Saturday.
They were brand new to our area when we signed up, so I might give them a few months to figure out some of the delivery kinks and sign up again!
It horrifies me that the produce in your pictures is considered "waste". It's so beautiful! I'm glad that Hungry Harvest exists and that you've made it a priority to buy from them and promote them on your blog. If they ever come to Canada, I'll definitely look into signing up.
That is so wonderful, I only found out recently how many millions of tonnes of great produce is discarded on farms in Australia because it's not the right size or shape - apparently thousands of tonnes of cavendish bananas are left to rot if they are not bent and lady fingers if they are not straight (crazy eh?) or if either are the wrong length, this is crazy - all that water, fertilizer, labour costs and fuel used to harvest fruit that will be dumped, all because it's not shaped right. Farmers markets are growing in popularity and one supermarket here sells a brand called 'the odd bunch' I'm so glad it's starting to take off more.
Thanks for this review! I read about this company online somewhere and didn't realize they're in my area. What a great idea - I mean, do I care if my carrot has a weird shape?
This phenomenon also says a lot about how appearance affects so much of people's behavior. Which translates into why folks spend more money on so many things in life that aren't necessary (cars, iphones, blenders etc)
I thought it was just another produce service (which is great) but using rejected food AND helping to feed needy folks -- well that is super great! And your broccoli/kale/brussels sprouts example was spot on -- if you send it, I will cook.
Sad that it is not available in CA yet . . . Thanks for this info1
Check into a company called Imperfect Produce. I know they're in Southern California!
I live about 45 minutes from Philly but we're not on their map yet. I'm going to try to get people to sign up for the wait list to up our chances of being added sooner rather than later. My local Giant bags up ugly produce and reduces the price significantly! I have had many a good score from the reduced produce rack. Often I truly cannot tell what the perceived issue was with the produce. I support our local farmers buy shopping weekly at a Farmer's Market but would love this for the winter months when the market is open less frequently. Thanks for your review.