Thrive Market: A Grocer Making a Difference

Many years ago, for reasons only my stomach can tell you, dairy stopped being my friend. So around 2018, I began making the switch from milk to almond milk, from butter to ghee, from parmesan to nutritional yeast.

And more recently, as in the past year or so—thanks to a book my mom recommended titled Food Saved Me by Danielle Walker—I was inspired to also remove gluten and soy from my diet. My stomach feels better than it has in years thanks to these changes, but as you can probably guess, it hasn’t always been easy.   

When I started down this journey in earnest 5+ years ago, I had to find a grocer that could meet my changing dietary needs. Enter Thrive Market.

I first heard about Thrive from a friend at the gym and became a member in 2019 (you pay a small annual fee—kind of like Costco or BJ’s). I regularly buy their products, including (and especially) their dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free alternatives, and I’d say I spend about a third of our family’s monthly grocery budget at their online store.

Here's what I love about Thrive:

• The quality of their products.

• The selection and price point of their healthy alternatives.*

• The speed of their shipping (usually I get my box within two days).

A sampling of the Thrive Market products I keep at our house. I use many of them daily or weekly.

But as I’ve started to explore environmentally friendly options as a consumer, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover there’s more to love about Thrive Market than its ability to meet my dietary needs.

World’s First Climate Positive Grocer

According to their website, Thrive Market is “building the world’s first climate positive grocery story.” What does this mean? They explain it in more detail on their site, but basically, they’re working to

• reduce their carbon output (and become climate positive by 2030),

• maintain their Zero Waste certification (currently, they “recycle or repurpose at least 90% of materials”),

• and recover from nature the amount of plastic they use in shipping and packaging each year.

On this last point, they explain they’ve “now recovered more than 1 million pounds of plastic—the equivalent of more than 26 million plastic water bottles.”

You can view their full impact report from 2024 by clicking here.

A Grocer that Gives Back

It’s interesting to me how often the lifestyle changes I’ve made for my health are overlapping with positive changes for the environment. To be clear, I fully supported Thrive Market long before I even considered the impact my shopping has on things like carbon emissions and workplace conditions. But now that I know the work they’re doing to positively impact our world, I’m even more on their team.

Along with caring for the planet, Thrive Market cares for its customers. In fact, for the ten years they’ve been in business, it’s been their promise “since day one” to give a free membership to a family in need for every annual membership purchased.

According to their 2024 impact report, Thrive has donated one-year memberships to teachers, nurses, first responders, students, veterans, and families in financial need. They also provide the option every time you check out for you to donate an amount of your choice to various “nonprofit partners that provide food access and education to kids and families across the country.”

In 2024, this translated into “$90,886 in healthy groceries [being] sent to families through nonprofit partners” along with “$55,225 in hurricane relief.”

A screenshot of a "Thrive Gives" opportunity. You're given options like this at checkout.

To Thrive or Not to Thrive?

You can read more about Thrive Market, what they stand for, and the kinds of products they endorse (they boast having the “highest quality standards in the industry,” vetting not only for trustworthy ingredients but also for ethical sourcing) on their website. And click here to read specifically about the quality standards they use for their products.

Here’s what I’m not saying: You need to sign up for a Thrive Market membership today and buy all your groceries from them! Go Thrive!

Here’s what I am saying: Check out Thrive Market and see if their products are in line with your dietary needs. And while you’re at it, check out the kind of work they’re doing to support the planet and support people.

Because here’s the bottom line:

We all buy groceries, and not all grocery stores are made the same. Not all grocery stores care about carbon emissions. Not all grocery stores make it their mission to give back to people in need. If Thrive isn’t for you, that’s okay. But realize that your money is your vote, and your vote matters.

Consider who and what you’re supporting every time you make a purchase. And if you don’t want to vet every grocery product yourself, then vet your grocer first. If you know and trust them, you can know your money is being stewarded well—to support your family; possibly even to support other families across the nation or the world; and hopefully, to support the future of our shared home.

Every purchase matters. Shop well. 💛

---

*Although it's getting easier to find all-the-things-free alternatives at traditional grocery chains, I still find these specialty products (generally) are cheaper on Thrive Market than at my local, in-store grocers.