Hungry Harvest — Local services in Morrisville

I've tried very hard to make Hungry Harvest work. I loved the business Ungraded that I initially started with before it was acquired by HH, but there has been a huge decline since switching to HH. In general, the produce I receive is often less fresh than what I was getting with Ungraded. I've often found moldy spots, veggies that are sliced open, and it all typically needs eaten or cooked within the next few days as it's near the end of its shelf life. They also use much more plastic, including a freezer pack. It seems the freezer pack may be necessary because of how long it takes for the box to actually get from wherever it starts to my door, which may explain the less fresh produce.

Despite this, I believe in their mission and I enjoy the convenience, so I've been letting them know when I receive mishaps like this and occasionally they will credit me the price of that item, all in the hope that if I'm patient, they'll work it out eventually. However, I will most likely be ending my service with them.

I received an email letting me know my payment information hadn't gone through and my box had been canceled. This is strange considering my credit card is working, and I hadn't changed the info since receiving my box last week. After further reading the email, they mention that I can still get my box delivered, but only if I reach out to them before my cut off window. My cut off window was 30 mins before they sent me this email.

I reached out anyways to see if they could help me and asked if this strange payment issue and getting the email too late was something other customers had experienced. I did immediately get a response from a Bethany at HH, however this response was clearly copy and pasted as it did not address either of these concerns.

Overall, I am a huge supporter of the ugly produce subscription model, but I can no longer personally recommend Hungry Harvest. If Ungraded ever somehow made it's way back, I would absolutely recommend...

As other reviewers noted, Hungry Harvest has significant quality control problems.

Poor quality produce--Hardy items like most apples, kale and carrots do OK. Always avoid more sensitive produce, like mushrooms (the worst--slimy), avocados and mangos (underripe AND bruised), any kind of berry, eggplant, many tomatoes etc. Everything in between is a crapshoot.

Packing problems--About 1 out of 3 times items are incomplete or totally missing. Less often there's something I didn't order. Strange that the mistakes go more against the customer than for!

Delivery problems--My box has been delivered to my neighbors, delivered at the first floor elevator, and just not delivered at all--that was today, the reason prompting this review. So don't count on your produce showing up.

Finally, there are some basic problems with this business model. The amount of packaging isn't as bad as some of their competitors, but an icepack and a box is a lot to have to recycle/trash every week. And I am dubious of their claim that they are rescuing produce from the landfill. I suspect that their main innovation is doing direct-to-consumer marketing from the secondary produce market--not rescuing produce, but Amazon-izing it. While convenient (when it works), this may not be the most sustainable approach.

TLDR: You may get your vegetables, they may be OK, and you may be doing good. Or...

I enjoyed this service initially. It has never been much of a bargain (you can definitely get better prices at Aldi or similar stores) but I was willing to pay because I like their idea. Over time I have unfortunately found that the quality control is really lacking and the produce I receive is significantly less fresh than anything I buy at the grocery store. I receive my box on Saturday and lately, by Sunday night 50+% of it is bad. I often receive items that have large cuts, bruises, etc and sometimes are already moldy. I will say that their customer service is decent because they respond quickly when I send pictures of the bad items and they do give small refunds.

Lastly, I have found the 'never' list to be less than helpful because they do not seem to put much thought into the replacement items. For instance, due to their lettuce typically not even lasting for 1 day, I put lettuce on my 'never' list. What do they give me instead? Kale... which, while not technically lettuce, is an annoying and not thoughtful replacement. Last time they gave me collard greens as the lettuce replacement.... Overall I do not think this service is a good value and there are too many quality control issues for me to recommend...