Able and Cole-now in my area, any good?

liz545

I've been getting a Riverford box for a while, and my flatmate got an Abel & Cole box, so I was able to do a side-by-side comparison. To be honest, I prefer the Riverford box, the produce in the Abel & Cole boxes was a bit ordinary, if I just wanted potatoes & bananas I'd go to the supermarket, so I prefer the slightly more unusual/exotic veg in the Riverford box.

The other thing to bear in mind that Riverford and a lot of the schemes on Big Barn are run by farms and local producers, while Abel & Cole are brokers so they buy their produce from a wide range of suppliers rather than growing it themselves - one thing to bear in mind if buying local food is one of the reasons you'd like a veg box.

Caterina

Hi

I also prefer Riverford to Abel and Cole. A&C fruit is just HORRID usually and in general they are more expensive than Riverford.

Having said that, what's advantageous with A&C is that you can do shopping for other stuff without having to order vegetables, provided you spend £9 (I think that's the minimum spend).

One thing that they have which is GORGEOUS is the Blueberry soya yogurts, and also the cherry flavours. I cannot resist them, if I have them in the house I gobble them down one after the other, mind you they are less fattening than ice cream and a lot healthier!

HTH

Caterina

sunbeamer

We've received 2 abel and cole deliveries now (we were sucked in by the claim that the veg is better than the supermarket and 20% cheaper!)

I've done an equivalent shop online this morning as I have to go shopping for everything else anyway - here's what I found.

Abel and Cole costs us £20 including delivery
thats 3 types of fruit and lots of veggies

The same basket contents with Sainsburys so organic range would cost me £15.30 ... so I'm pretty sure that if I got the non organic stuff this would come down further.

There are a couple of upsides to Abel and Cole - my daughter (3) gets excited about the veg box appearing in the garden. She's never been a fussy eater, but this gets her more excited about the veg, especially when we got purple carrots!

Also - the food does taste good. There is a considerable difference in taste, especially with the fruit. (Not that the little ones care too much!)

The downside is that it doesnt last too long. We had some long beans in the fridge for just 3 days and they'd got white mould all over them.

So I guess there are ups and downs.

With a weekly shop difference of £5+ per week - I'm not convinced that the extra cost of Abel and cole is worth it.

Hope this helps someone.