Fellow humans, let’s admit something. Feeding yourself is a tiring task. There’s the grocery shopping, meal planning, cooking, eating and, of course, the cleaning up afterwards. Even if you’ve got a meal delivery service or you get your morning smoothie shipped to your doorstep each week, eating healthy food for every meal, every day of the week takes a lot of effort. Thankfully there are services attempting to make this arduous part of life easier, services like Thrive Market.
Thrive Market is an online organic grocery marketplace where you can buy an all-natural, organic version of almost anything for your home — from snacks and desserts to pastas and grains, cleaning supplies, soups and broths, oils, frozen foods and more. It has a similar membership model to Costco, where you pay a monthly or annual membership fee and get access to their products at discounted prices up to 30% off retail. Memberships only costs $5/month, or $60 for the entire year.
You can shop by diet and lifestyle, like Keto, Paleo and Whole30, among others. All of their shipping is fast, free and carbon neutral, and you have the option to subscribe to every item in their marketplace and get it regularly shipped to you so you never run out.
Thrive Market Review: What I Like
I joined Thrive Market of my own volition earlier this year after being persistently and accurately targeted by their YouTube ads, and have been using it for about six months. It’s a great service that definitely has its perks. I live with my boyfriend, and we’ve been placing orders every 6-8 weeks on average for things like cooking oils, canned goods, grains, frozen foods and snacks. Him and I try to generally live a healthy, balanced lifestyle and find that many of the brands we’d usually purchase at Whole Foods are available via Thrive for less money.
Related Stories
The marketplace has a nice user interface that makes it easy to search by brand, product or diet depending on what you’re looking for. They’ve also divided up all of the products into different, intuitive categories that make a lot of sense, and make it fun to browse.
With every product you add to your cart, they show you how much you’re saving off of conventional retail prices, and calculate your total savings at the end before you check out. There’s also always an option to add an item to your regularly monthly or bi-monthly order, which saves you a little more money.
Thrive’s packaging is superb, and everything, so far, has arrived in great, temperature-controlled condition. The boxes are well cushioned so chips remain in tact and we recently received a separate box of frozen goods that were all kept frozen for the entire shipping process.
There’s this trope that ordering groceries online is better than in person because you don’t have the impulse purchases. The opposite is true for Thrive Market. Their website is so fun to browse on that I always find myself ordering way more than I otherwise would have. They make accessing, researching and ordering great organic products way too easy, which is definitely a pro for them, but also requires more willpower on behalf of the consumer if you’re trying to stick to a budget. You’ve been warned!
What Could Be Better
While Thrive’s marketplace is extensive, and you have access to 70+ brands across a variety of categories, they don’t have everything. Their bread options are limited, and they don’t carry many of the big brands or most popular flavors you’re used to seeing at health food stores.
The “Autoship” option is convenient, but you’ve got to pay close attention to what you do and don’t need send to you every month, otherwise you’ll get charged and accidentally order 16 bags of frozen cauliflower rice you don’t need. Also, for many staple grocery items like rice, pasta and canned goods you’re required to order a minimum of two or four of something, which can raise the order value and take up more space in your pantry.
The Verdict
If you’re into eating organic food but want to save a bit of money along the way, Thrive Market is a great option. It won’t cut down your grocery bill to bargain prices or make exorbitantly-priced nuts cheap all of a sudden, but it will make accessing some of the brands you know and love easier. Plus, ordering everything from home and getting it shipped to you is a luxury my millennial-shaped heart will never tire of.
The 14 Best Meal Delivery Kits for Easy, Healthy Weeknight Dinners