Fruit and veg boxes - are they good value for money?

MaureenHB

I have only just recently joined a scheme the same as the one you mention, in fact it may be the same company.. Farmaround? I received my "box".. actually a bag.. on time on Thursday and to be honest I was a little disapointed with the quantity, didn't seem to be much in it for my £10.50, but the quality is definitely good. Very tasty tomatoes, fresh and firm greens, just not many potatoes and one lonely onion! I am going to give it a few weeks to see how it goes, I have been looking at other options locally which seem to be a bit cheaper, Beanies of Sheffield do a box for £7. Maureen

Becles

I started getting boxes last autumn and was happy with them until recently.

We had courgettes for 6 weeks in a row. I'm not a great lover of them but will eat them. Nobody else here likes them. The box contained 6-8 courgettes a week, and I got cheesed off eating a pile of them with nearly every meal, just to use them up.

The also seemed to have a problem with produce arriving damaged or past it's best, such as a lettuce covered in slime where it had sweated in the plastic bag, a grapefruit that needed eating immediately as it was very soft, and carrots that had already started to go brown on delivery.

I just got sick of paying more for substandard produce, so I cancelled it.

I wondered if they had problems storing things with the warmer weather arriving. They deliver boxes on Tues, Weds and Thurs, with ours arriving on Thurs. I wondered if it had been made up earlier in the week, then left to stand till delivery on Thurs, hence things were past their best.

redmandarin

Hiya, thanks for your advice, I used to have organic fruit and veg deliveries but stopped because they were so expensive and I also had problems with mixed boxes - things such as very organic spiky leafy salad that gave us an allergic swollen throat reaction and often items such as large unpleasant dessert apples that were more like sour cooking varieties. Plus, as OH and I work full time, we don't have the energy to scrub carrots or potatoes caked in soil (which ends up all over the sink) before cooking our evening meal! We also HATE cougettes! We would like to have deliveries again though - if I can find one where we can select our weekly order rather than a pot luck and if it wouldn't be prohibitively priced, then that would be great. I just googled this - http://www.alotoforganics.co.uk/cats/organic-vegetables.php I'll check it out later when I've more time. Hope it will be of help to ya!

abbecer

I got an organic delivery for several weeks and tried two different companies. In the end i had to cancel because it was just too expensive. I did shop around for the cheapest but it was still costing me over £30 per week for what I needed. I was still having to go out and buy extra as well. We are only a family of 4 but we eat an obscene amount of fruit and veg and couldn't afford to carry on with it. I strongly agree with the principles of organic and think that it tastes far better but for most is still largely unaffordable.

Rebecca x:rotfl:

recovering_spendaholic

A few weeks ago I started to get a weekly delivery from Northern Harvest www.northernharvest.co.uk and I have been delighted with the quality and quantity I have been getting. I chose not to have the pre-selected box but chose my own contents and I got a HUGE amount of al kinds of stuff for £24. I got salad and veg and some bramley apples and all of the veg and salad was of a far superior quality to anything I have had in the supermarket and I find that it keeps beautifully fresh for two weeks. They also do eggs and they were fab and really cheap (£1.00 a dozen and with a really long shelf date). I also got some home made preserves (red cabbage and pickled red onion) which were much less than supermarket price and delicious and made on the farm where NH is based. They also do organic meat, which was not too badly priced but I didn't get much as I tend to use a local butcher which I have found. I did get some liver and braising steak though, both of which were lovely, and I got a pound of bacon which looked fatty but which grilled nicely and tasted lovely.

Pink.

Hi gilly,

Some of the replies on Gingham Ribbon's recent thread might interest you:

Organic delivery from farmaround.

Pink

redmandarin

Hiya all, (what am I doing awake at 3.20 am - but hey! Bank Hol weekend, so no work till Tueday - Whoohoo!)? Thanks for your thanks gilly41 and good luck - thanked you too!

Beanies sound great, Maureen HB (and good value too) but they don't do my area, unfortunately. I agree abbecer, I had to stop mine too because it was so, so expensive - shame!

Thanks for the link, r.spenda, I was really excited by the prospect of northern harvest (good and quite cheap) and also by farmaround pink-winged but neither do my postcode. :sad:

One problem is that coz I'm veggie I don't want deliveries from producers of meat (yukkk!) so it does limit my choices (apart from my obvious lack of money and dislike of courgettes).

Rather than help increase the profits of a global supermarket chains, (mentioning no names!) I'd like to have deliveries from a reasonably priced co-operative, that produce good value, wholesome food. What can you do though, when you've got to have an eye on the purse strings - and you end up settling for the organic offerings of Asda and Tesco (along with any money off vouchers available) just to try and keep your family a little more healthy?

Bexstars

Hiya

Im new to the site and im just working my way some of the threads and have seen veg boxes mentioned a couple of times. Is this a selection of veg that gets delivered to your door?

How do I find out more about them?

Sorry if I sound a bit dense but im just trying to get into a better way of living and havent heard of these before

Thanks

Bex

Doozergirl

I found mine by Googling Vegetable Box and my town name. It brought up several companies. I don't know where you are but we use Flights Orchard, based in the Midlands.

I've had mine for only two months but I love it, it's all delicious and have had some really wierd and wonderful vegetables. It does actually seem to save me money as they send me a similar amount each week which lasts us perfectly to the next delivery, so we don't have any vegetable waste any more!

lil_me

We don't have a local veg box delivery but do have a van which delivers, then I get to pick my own also very fresh