Grocery shopping can become an inconvenient chore. This is especially true for older adults—lack of reliable transportation, mobility issues, and other lifestyle changes can make grocery shopping challenging or even impossible. Although adults are more likely to have access to reliable transportation as they age, 4.5% of older adults lack reliable transportation. (1)
Lack of transportation, limited mobility, chronic health issues, and other factors can also contribute to hunger and food insecurity. In 2021, 5.5 million older adults experienced food insecurity in the United States. (2)
A meal delivery service is a helpful alternative for adults of all ages who may be facing these difficulties, though some services only provide ingredients for specific recipes. While meal delivery services take care of your meals for the week, you may still have to visit the grocery store for pantry and refrigerator staples.
Hungryroot stands out from some of the best meal delivery services by combining meal kits, premade meals, and grocery delivery. This combination makes it a more likely substitute for your weekly grocery visit than a traditional meal delivery service.
Hungryroot is marketed as “your personal grocer,” and we think it lives up to this title. The brand delivers produce, pantry staples, beverages, snacks, supplements, and other grocery items—in addition to meal kits and premade meals—straight to your door.
Our team product tester tried Hungryroot for a week to give you an honest review of the signup process, recipe quality, convenience, and more. Read our full review to find out if Hungryroot is right for you.
Medical disclaimer: This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for medical advice. For health advice, contact a licensed healthcare provider.
Key product features
What you should know
Hungryroot delivers meal kit recipes, premade meals, snacks, beverages, supplements, and grocery items to your home every week. Your weekly grocery cart is custom-made based on your dietary and nutritional preferences, lifestyle, flavor preferences, and dietary restrictions.
- We like the vast amount of choices that Hungryroot offers customers.
- Hungryroot meal plans start at $69 a week and increase based on number of meals, serving size, and snacks that you can choose.
- Hungryroot is an excellent option for people looking for a meal delivery service that can also serve as an all-in-one grocery service.
How does Hungryroot work?
While most meal delivery services allow you to browse recipes before creating an account, Hungryroot does not. You must complete a detailed questionnaire, create an account, and input your credit card information before receiving your weekly meal plan.
The questionnaire takes about five to 10 minutes to complete. You’ll answer questions about your meal habits, goals, and preferences, including:
- Household size
- Weekly meal budget
- Nutritional and dietary preferences (e.g., gut-friendly, less sugar, less sodium, anti-inflammatory, high-protein)
- Dietary restrictions (e.g., dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, soy-free, peanut-free)
- Flavor, cuisine, and spice level preferences
- Meal preparation effort
The questionnaire helps Hungryroot create your weekly meal plan based on your answers. We like the in-depth questions but don’t like that you can’t view your results until you’ve signed up (and paid) for a Hungryroot subscription. Some shoppers may hesitate to commit to Hungryroot before viewing popular recipes, available grocery items, and other details about the meal delivery service.
Once you complete the questionnaire and create your Hungryroot account, you’ll receive a meal plan and full grocery cart based on your food profile. Your food profile is saved to your online account and can be edited anytime.
Your grocery cart is a mixture of recipes and accompanying ingredients, snacks, premade meals, breakfast items, and beverages like coffee, protein shakes, and juices, depending on your questionnaire. You can always edit your cart before it’s delivered to your home.
Choosing meals and groceries
Hungryroot can be more hands-off than other meal delivery services. You don’t need to manually choose your recipes and groceries each week —your cart is automatically filled based on your food profile.
Of course, you’re also welcome to review and edit your grocery cart. We suggest reviewing your cart before it ships, especially if you’re a hands-on shopper who enjoys selecting your recipes and groceries for the week.
Your weekly meal plan is organized by credits. Depending on your budget, serving size, and the number of desired meals and snacks you chose during your questionnaire, you’ll receive an allotted number of credits for your groceries. All recipes and grocery items are assigned a credit value.
While the credit system may initially seem confusing, it’s designed to help you swap out recipe ingredients or select single grocery items while staying within your weekly meal plan budget. You can roll over unused credits into the next week.
If you’d like to replace the pre-selected recipes in your cart or browse all available recipes, you can select “Recipes” in the left corner of your online account. We like that recipes can be filtered by meal type, dietary needs, proteins, nutritional preferences, spice level, and more.
To view a meal’s cooking instructions and full nutritional label, all you have to do is select a recipe card. While browsing recipe cards, you can update your grocery cart with a new recipe or save recipes for a future order.
You can also view individual grocery items by selecting “Groceries” in the left corner of your online account. Grocery items include produce, bread, pasta, snacks, sauces, pantry staples, and even supplements. (3)
“Supplements can help fill in older adults’ unique nutritional needs, such as calcium, vitamin D, B vitamins, zinc, and protein.”
Chrissy Arsenault, MBA, RDN (4)
Like recipe cards, you can select the product card to get more information about the grocery item. The item’s credit value is at the bottom left, so you can keep track of item swaps and replacements when changing your order, which we discuss in further detail below.
Changing orders
Changing orders and grocery items is fairly easy. It can be done online or on the Hungryroot app. We like that you can remove or swap ingredients for any recipe. This creates a more custom shopping experience and doesn’t leave you with duplicative ingredients you already have at home or ingredients you don’t like.
Let’s say you want to make the turkey tenderloin-based recipe pictured below, but you already have barbecue sauce in your pantry. Press “Edit” to remove the Smokey Sweet Hickory barbecue sauce from the order. The total meal credit value will change based on your edits.
You can also swap out recipe ingredients. If you switch two ingredients with the same credit value, the total credit value of the meal doesn’t change. The meal credit increases if the new item is worth more credits than the original.
Adding grocery items to your order doesn’t have to mean replacing items. For an extra charge, you can add additional items to your cart.
Specs
| Price per serving | $8.99-$12.99 |
| Shipping cost | $6.99 per week; free shipping for orders over $70 |
| Shipping availability | Contiguous U.S. |
| Meal type | Meal kits, prepared meals, snacks, beverages, supplements, and groceries |
| Number of meals per week | Three to eight |
| Meal options | Anti-inflammatory, dairy-free, egg-free, high-protein, gluten-free, peanut-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, tree nut-free, vegan, vegetarian, carb-conscious, gut-friendly, immunity-boosting, less sodium, less sugar, and less prep time |
| Cancellation method | Online |
Our Hungryroot experience
After trying Hungryroot, we have a few key takeaways future customers may want to consider.
Packaging
Our tester’s Hungryroot order arrived in a large box and weighed about 10–15 pounds. While this box’s weight is lighter than other meal delivery services we’ve tested, a 15-pound box may still be difficult for some to get into their homes. If you’re considering Hungryroot or any other meal delivery service, you may need assistance carrying the box into your home.
The boxed ingredients were individually wrapped and well-protected by ice packets. Although all items arrived in one box, they were grouped together according to food type. Our tester said the box was easy to open with a knife, but we think you should also be able to slice through the packing tape with scissors.
Hungryroot uses Enviro Ice gel packs to keep your groceries cool in transit. The ice packs are drain-safe, so you can cut open the packs and pour the melted gel down your drain. The gel also doubles as plant food—a great eco-friendly touch.
The produce was mostly fresh with little spoilage. There were apple slices in a snack pack that didn’t look fresh when they arrived and rotted a few days later in our tester’s refrigerator. Everything else, including meat and fish, was fresh and didn’t spoil.
If you receive spoiled or damaged items, you can report them through your online account or smartphone app. Hungryroot will reimburse you the appropriate credits for the items, which you can then use on your next order.
Preparing the meals
When testing Hungryroot, our tester prepared four meals. They received all recipe instructions on one sheet of paper with their groceries. The print was very small since four recipes were crammed on one paper—those with low vision may have trouble reading the instructions. We suggested viewing the recipes online or via the app to zoom into the text if needed.
Hungryroot meals are generally low-preparation. The brand uses fresh and prepped ingredients to help make a simple meal, which eliminates time-consuming tasks like chopping and slicing. Our tester rated all four meals suitable for beginner cooks, but they thought the recipe instructions were sometimes confusing and unhelpful. The added confusion may overcomplicate an otherwise easy, straightforward cooking process.
“The cooking instructions are very vague, and most of the time, the projected cook time length is way too short. I had to reread the instructions multiple times for each meal, and all meals took longer than expected.”
Team Product Tester
Most of our tester’s projected cooking times were off by 10–15 minutes, with the longest actual cooking time at 25 minutes. Still, less than a half hour for food preparation and cooking time is shorter than many standard recipes.
Our tester took liberties with some recipes to add flavor or prepare ingredients with cookware they had on hand. One recipe instructed seasoning salmon with salt and pepper before baking it in the oven. Instead, our tester seasoned the salmon with additional onion powder, garlic powder, lemon pepper, and paprika and opted to cook it on a stovetop skillet.
“Although the green goddess salmon salad recipe suggested baking the salmon, I opted to cook it in a skillet and season it to my taste since the instructions only mentioned salt and pepper, which weren’t provided. The recipe advised microwaving the potatoes, but I boiled them on the stove instead since I didn’t have a sufficiently large bowl.”
Overall, our tester thought Hungryroot meals were convenient to prepare, even with some unclear recipe instructions and inaccurate cooking times.
Quality of meals
If a meal is low-quality and doesn’t taste good, then it doesn’t matter how easy it is to make. Fortunately, our tester was impressed with the quality of almost all their Hungryroot meals.
“The salmon green goddess salad was excellent! I loved the green goddess salad dressing, and adding potatoes to a salad was a pleasant surprise.”
Team Product Tester
They also mentioned how much they enjoyed the healthy snacks in their grocery order. But, not all our tester’s meals were winners. They didn’t like the taste or texture of one recipe and couldn’t finish it.
“The sweet chili shrimp ramen was dreadful—the noodles tasted awful, like hard cardboard. It only included a small cup of sweet chili sauce, leaving everything dry. I couldn’t even finish it…After one bite, I threw it away.”
Many Hungryroot meals include processed foods such as premade sauces, dips, and frozen or pre-seasoned produce. Ultra-processed foods can poorly impact your health and increase your risk of higher cholesterol, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. (5)
When reviewing your weekly grocery cart, look for recipes that rely heavily on premade sauces or frozen ingredients. We recommend substituting these processed items for fresh ingredients, or choose another recipe with mostly fresh produce and light seasoning for a healthier choice.
Serving sizes
Hungryroot recipes are available as two or four servings. Our tester opted for the two-serving option and reported that they thought the serving sizes were small. “I easily ate everything on my own. I imagine I’d be hungry if I had to share these meals with someone else,” they said.
Remember that everyone’s nutritional needs, appetite, and satiety levels vary. A small serving size for one eater may be satisfactory for another.
We’ve Featured Hungryroot in:
- Best meal delivery services
- Best organic meal delivery services
- Best vegetarian meal delivery services
- Best meal delivery services for singles
- Best healthy meal delivery services
- Best grocery delivery services
How we test meal delivery services
Signing up for a meal delivery service can be wildly convenient for both your schedule and nutrition goals. But not all meal delivery services are created equally. That’s why our team aims to personally test every meal delivery service we review.
Every Fortune meal delivery review features:
- In-depth analysis by testers and/or authors who are certified nutritionists and/or registered dietitians
- Testing for portion/ingredient accuracy, taste, and freshness
- Fact-checking and reviewing by qualified experts
You can read our full meal delivery testing methodology here.
The following criteria is what we use to assess meal delivery services.
Testing criteria
Meal choices—30%
A meal delivery service should provide a variety of meal options that taste good and are easy to get on the table. When evaluating this category we look at the following:
- Multiple options
- Substitutions
- Guidance
- Label transparency
Food quality—30%
When considering meal delivery services, we’re interested in the best quality meals and ingredients. Here’s what goes into our quality rating:
- Flavor
- Healthiness
- Freshness
Value—20%
While meal delivery service prices can vary, we know it’s important to feel like you got your money’s worth. Here’s what we factor into a program’s value rating:
- Fair price
- Multiple quantity options
- Customization
Customer experience—20%
When evaluating customer experience we look at the following:
- Packaging
- Ease of preparation
- Reviews
- Customer service
Compare Hungryroot
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| Hungryroot | Blue Apron | Hello Fresh | Purple Carrot | Sunbasket | |
| Rating | |||||
| Starting cost per serving | $3.99-$8.99 | $7.99 | $9.99 | $11 | $9.99 |
| Shipping cost | $6.99 | $10.99 | $10.99 | $10-$20 depending on location; free shipping on orders over $100 | $9.99 |
| Shipping availability | Continental U.S. | Contiguous U.S. | Continental U.S. and select areas in Hawaii and Alaska | Continental U.S. | Select U.S. states |
| Meal type | Meal kit, premade meals, groceries | Meal kit | Meal kit | Meal kit, premade meals | Meal kit, premade meals |
| Diet options | Anti-inflammatory, dairy-free, egg-free, high-protein, gluten-free, peanut-free, shellfish-free, soy-free, tree nut-free, vegan, vegetarian, carb-conscious, gut-friendly | Vegetarian, seafood, diabetes-friendly, and low-calorie options | Vegetarian, pescatarian | Vegan, high-protein, low-calorie, nut-free, soy-free, gluten-free, low-sodium | Gluten-free, vegetarian, pescatarian, low-carb, keto-friendly, paleo, Mediterranean, diabetes-friendly |
FAQs
How does Hungryroot work?
Hungryroot is a subscription service that delivers produce with accompanying recipes, premade meals, snacks, beverages, supplements, and other common grocery items to your home every week. When signing up for the service, you’ll create a personalized grocery plan based on your budget, lifestyle, dietary preferences, dietary restrictions, nutritional goals, and more.
How much does Hungryroot cost?
Hungryroot plans start at $69 per week. The lowest-cost plan provides three two-serving meals. Your meal plan cost depends on the number of meals, servings, and groceries you select each week. Shipping costs $6.99 for orders less than $70; all orders over $70 qualify for free shipping.
Is Hungryroot good for weight loss?
Hungryroot offers recipes and snacks, such as carb-conscious, less sugar, and less sodium options, that could help you achieve a calorie deficit, which is essential for weight loss. Switching to Hungryroot or any meal delivery service doesn’t guarantee weight loss. Speak with your primary care physician about your weight loss goals—they may recommend working with a registered dietician or nutritionist.
Our experts
Lily Moe
Lily is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor with over seven years of experience in health media. As a former Fitness Coach, Lily’s editorial prowess has largely focused on fitness, nutrition, and weight management. She has also spent a fair share of time in testing labs, analyzing everything from protein powders to yoga mats. Her work has appeared in Verywell Fit, Verywell Mind, Health, and more.
Amy Beney, RD
Amy Beney is a registered dietitian based outside Lockport, New York. After working with many people who have blood sugar issues and were diagnosed with diabetes, she pursued and received an advanced certification as a Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES). She enjoys breaking down complex medical information into smaller pieces that people can apply daily.
Chrissy Arsenault, MBA, RDN
Chrissy Arsenault is a registered dietitian with over nine years of experience in the health and wellness space. She first started in the industry working as a personal trainer at Cornell Fitness Centers. Now, she owns her own private practice and nutrition communications firm, Pink Pamplemousse.
Emily Breaux
Fortune Recommends Sr. Staff Writer
About Author
Emily is a health and wellness writer with a background in marketing and secondary education. She enjoys covering wellness topics that help readers navigate aging, caregiving, sleep, and nutritional health. Emily specializes in medical alert systems and has hand-tested more than 20 devices. Her work has been featured in National Council on Aging, HelpGuide, AgingInPlace.org, and MarketWatch.
Emily is based in New Orleans and enjoys neighborhood walks, practicing yoga, performing in local theatre productions, and finding her next read at the library.