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Organic delivery box - across the pond
August 28, 2007

I certainly wasn’t a pushover when it came to converting me to the joys of the organic home delivery box. In fact, it would be fair to say that I’ve been quite choosy. I’ve got first-hand experience of three of the companies in the UK that deliver a box of organic fruit and vegetables to your door. The first company I used was too expensive, the second delivered virtually the same vegetables every week and the third dumped me when I moved to a new area (’Where’s that? We don’t deliver there, I’m afraid.’)

So now I’m on my fourth organic delivery box company. It’s called Riverford and overall I’m pretty impressed. I’m yet to receive a lettuce with yucky brown bits, the carrots have an authentic covering of soil and there have been only one or two unidentifiable vegetables. I can also feel ever so slightly smug that hideous numbers of air miles have not been wasted to bring the produce to my door. (Most of the vegetable come from a farm in Devon; the rest from local producers).

And while many people seem to detest the fact that having an organic box delivered to your door means that you are limited to what’s in season, I quite enjoy it. It makes me more inventive and increases my vegetable repertoire: I wouldn’t dream of seeking out baby turnips or Jerusalem artichokes at the supermarket, but I’ve certainly enjoyed trying them.

There is still one small nagging doubt. What the hell are you supposed to do with cabbages? Don’t get me wrong, I like coleslaw as much as the next person, but not every week. And sauerkraut is OK too, but it doesn’t get you excited, does it? In fact, it’s difficult to get excited about anything to do with cabbages.

Of course I acknowledge that the cabbage family is a diverse one: there are white cabbages, red cabbages and savoy cabbages. Believe me, I’ve tried them all. Savoy cabbages, apparently, are the hardiest members of the cabbage family, able to endure even the harshest of winters. And they also go well with a traditional English roast dinner; all those wrinkly bits on the leaves are excellent for soaking up the gravy. I’ve had a go at making cabbage soup too. My family were seriously under whelmed, but I thought it was quite nice.

But despite my growing discontent with the never-ending cabbages, I find that I have developed quite an attachment to my organic delivery box. This became apparent when I went into my local Tescos (the biggest UK supermarket chain) to find that it too now sells an organic box of fruit and vegetables sourced from ‘local farmers’. And it costs a whole £2 less than the box I have delivered to my door. Not only that, but Tescos announced last week that it is now trialling an organic home delivery scheme too.
Tescos is a phenomenon. Everything it does is a huge success, so I guess there is every reason why its organic delivery scheme should be too.

Like Riverford et al, Tescos is going to give customers reassuring information about where the products are grown and who the farmers are, as well as a couple of recipe ideas for what to do with the ‘less standard’ vegetables.

All this should, in theory, be a good thing. Big supermarket working more closely with local farmers etc. etc. And yet isn’t there something not quite right about buying your organic delivery box from the country’s biggest supermarket chain? After all, its organic boxes might come from the friendly farmer down the road, but what about the millions of items they import from every far-flung and pitifully paid corner of the globe to fill the rest of their shelves?

No, somehow I can’t see myself becoming a customer any time soon. And maybe, just maybe, I’m not the only organic home delivery box devotees out there who feels this way. I reckon there’s quite a few who, though they may not be able to forsake the likes of Tescos completely, can gain a certain satisfaction from ‘putting two fingers up’ to the supermarket chains by getting their organic delivery box from a smaller, committed organic company that sources the majority of ALL its produce within the UK.

Meanwhile, does anyone have any novel suggestions on what to do with cabbages?

Helen, voice of reason from UK

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