Long Island meal-prep chain Hummus Fit opening Miller Place store

Hummus Fit, a locally based chain that makes and sells ready-to-eat, prepackaged meals to health-conscious customers, is opening its 14th Long Island location in Miller Place.

The Ronkonkoma-based business will celebrate the grand opening of its newest location Saturday at 451  Route 25A. Owners of the company, which also sells its prepackaged meals nationwide, said customers had been asking for a location in the area for some time.

“We do nationwide shipping, but our goal is to put in a couple more stores on Long Island," said Tony Mavruk, who owns Hummus Fit with his wife Liana, a former bodybuilder. "We are Long Islanders and we want to stay local.”

The business opened a Huntington Station location last year and has shops across the Island, including in Deer Park, Woodbury, Ronkonkoma, Lynbrook, Lindenhurst and Selden. 

The new location, which held a soft opening Friday, will offer 30% off products all weekend. Customers who spend $200 or more will also receive a free air fryer, Mavruk said.

The company, which started as a side project to offer prepared meals to the Mavruks’ friends, has grown significantly over the past 11 years. What began as a small operation in the kitchen of Hummus Mediterranean Grill in Holbrook in 2015 has grown into a national e-commerce business with 26 stores in the tristate area, most of them in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

“We’re continuously growing the size of our e-commerce business day by day,” Mavruk said, adding that the company ships hundreds of boxes daily to online customers.

Health-conscious consumers have become a bigger target market for food businesses in recent years, analysts said.

“Two of the winning areas in the food arena are wellness and convenience,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, a Manhattan-based retail analysis firm, wrote in an emailt. “Meal prep products can win in both arenas, as they help save time and do not have to be ultra-processed as many other quick meal solutions like fast food or takeout.”

Donna Hood Crecca, senior principal at Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant industry analysis firm, said concepts like Hummus Fit “are tapping into this evolving approach to healthy eating and tapping into the at-home eating occasion by offering prepared meals.”

“Healthful eating today is increasingly personalized as consumers look to food and beverages to satisfy their unique physical and mental health and wellness needs and goals,” Crecca said in an email.