AT A GLANCE
Verdict. Good if you already shop at Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, Jewel-Osco or another Albertsons Companies store and want deals and a one-tap cart. Frustrating if you plan by calendar, cook for 3 or 5, or shop anywhere else.
How we assessed it. From Mealime’s transition notice, Albertsons’ Meal Plans documentation and Plan to Eat’s hands-on review of September 2026. We make MealPot, a competing planner; judge our reading of the facts accordingly.
What Meals Hub is
Meals Hub is a section of the Albertsons Companies store apps, reached through More → Meals Hub, and of the store websites. Mealime says every Mealime recipe, including former Pro recipes, is in it, and that the planner works even without a nearby store. Recipes can be added to a shopping list or straight to a cart for pickup or delivery from an Albertsons-owned store.
You sign in with a store account, not your Mealime account. Dietary preferences, dislikes and settings are re-entered in the Meals Hub profile; Mealime says some “need to be established directly within Meals Hub”.
What it does well
- Free, with the full catalogue. No subscription, no paywall on the former Pro recipes.
- Budget targeting. Set a weekly spend and the planner works to it, using the store’s current prices.
- Deals built in. Sale items are flagged, recipes can be filtered by what is on offer, and coupons clip inside the app.
- One-tap cart. Ingredients go to a list or directly into the store cart, with a review step to remove what you already have.
- Hands-free cooking mode and a “Cooked” marker, both familiar from Mealime.
- A photo-to-list tool that reads an existing paper list.
Where it falls short
- Servings are 2, 4 or 6 only. No exact household size, so a family of three or five rounds up and over-buys, the same limitation Mealime had.
- No calendar. You get a set of meals for the week, not meals assigned to days. Plan to Eat’s review calls this the biggest gap for people who plan around their schedule.
- Store-locked shopping. Pickup and delivery come only from Albertsons-owned stores. If you shop at Walmart, Aldi, Kroger, Costco or Trader Joe’s, the list is a starting point and the cart is useless.
- Recipe clipper problems. Plan to Eat reported the import-from-URL tool did not work in its testing and fell back to manual entry.
- No custom collections. Recipes cannot be organised into your own categories.
- US only in practice. Every listed banner is a US chain. See our guide for users outside the US.
Who should use it
Use Meals Hub if your groceries already come from an Albertsons Companies store and your household is 2, 4 or 6. The deals integration is real money saved, and nothing else gives you Mealime’s exact catalogue for free.
Look elsewhere if you plan by calendar, need exact servings, shop at several stores, live outside the US, or want your recipes in a place that does not depend on one retailer’s app strategy. Our Meals Hub alternatives page walks through those options, and every Mealime dinner is rebuilt here with quantities for 2 to 6 and a grocery list you can take to any store.
Frequently asked questions
Is Meals Hub free?
Yes. Mealime says the planning tool costs nothing inside the Albertsons Companies apps and websites.
Do I need to shop at Albertsons to use Meals Hub?
No, Mealime says it works without a nearby store. The cart, deals and delivery features assume you do, though.
Will my Mealime favourites move to Meals Hub?
Mealime has not documented a transfer of favourites, notes or plans. It says personal data is deleted at shutdown and settings are re-entered in Meals Hub. Save what you cook before 21 October.
Can I set servings for 3 or 5 people?
Not according to the published reviews. Servings are 2, 4 or 6.
Is there a Meals Hub website?
Yes. The store websites carry the same Meal Plans section; Mealime links to a store selector that leads there.
Every Mealime dinner, any store.
Servings for 2 to 6, metric and US quantities, and a grocery list you can shop anywhere.