ABEL & COLE
www.abel-cole.co.uk
Product Mixed organic fruit and veg basic box.
Cost £16.50, no delivery charge.
Value for money Good; lots of good-quality produce for your
cash, although I thought eight onions was a bit much.
Food miles Most of the selection was from the UK; obviously
the bananas came from farther afield. The carrots were from Spain, although
they are plentiful here now, and the onions from the Netherlands.
Website Easy to navigate and to order; there is even a guide
to what size box would feed your family, depending on how many nights you
eat in. It’s informative, with recipes and tips.
Flexibility If you don’t like something, the website says you
will be given more of something else, but my basic box didn’t allow me to
alter the produce.
Delivery Everywhere in the UK; check your postcode on the
website. Deliveries are made Monday to Friday and an order will take three
days. If you are not in, the box will be left somewhere safe.
Verdict The basic box was uninspiring for this time of year,
but it is delivered nationwide. There are other boxes available that are
more varied but are delivered to a smaller catchment area.
RIVERFORD
www.riverford.co.uk
Product Medium veg box and fruit bag.
Cost £16.12 (£11.50 for veg, £4.30 for fruit, and a 2 per
cent bank card charge of 31p). No delivery charge.
Value for money Great selection of exciting veg for a good
price, but the fruit bag was costly and unexciting.
Food miles All the vegetables were from England, mostly from
Riverford farm, Devon, and the rest from local producers. However, there
were oranges from South Africa.
Website Attractive and easy to use.
Flexibility You can’t specify that you don’t want a certain
item.
Delivery South of England up to the Midlands, but not all the
big city areas. Riverford would not deliver to my workplace, in Central
London, but did so to my home in North London. If you will not be in you can
specify a safe place for it to be dropped off.
Verdict Fantastic produce and not just year-round stalwarts
such as potatoes and carrots. The seasonal produce was great, so nice to
make the most of green beans from England. And it was fun to try the baby
turnips.
EVERYBODY ORGANIC
www.everybodyorganic.com
Product selection box.
Cost Pounds 19.99. I had to buy the Pounds 18.99 box, which is
delivered by courier. There is a first-time charge of Pounds 1 for the
wooden box.
What's in it? 2 fat courgettes, 7 large leaves of chard, 4 tired toms
(one speckled with white mould), 4 very ripe kiwi fruit, one head of
broccoli, one spring cabbage, 2 little gem lettuces, 5 carrots, a small
cucumber, about 20 tiny new potatoes, 2 pears, 5 apples, 5 bananas.
Value for money? Poor; I had to throw away a tomato and the broccoli on
the second day.
Food miles The courgettes, pears and potatoes were from France; kiwis
from New Zealand; apples from Argentina; bananas from the Dominican
Republic. The rest was from farms in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Kent.
Website Easy to use, though I couldn't work out whether they would
deliver to my postcode and had to call them up. They picked the phone up
immediately and were very efficient.
Flexibility You can add seasonal favourites from the "pick your own"
section or make up the entire box (minimum Pounds 16) from the list. But you
can't exclude veg that you don't like from the ready made-up boxes.
Delivery Across London and the Home Counties. They deliver to your door
and are happy to leave it wherever is convenient if you're not in.
Verdict A deeply unexciting box, where everything looked past its
sell-by date and unlikely to last the week.
FARMAROUND
www.farmaround.co.uk
Product standard vegetable bag and standard fruit bag.
Cost Pounds 19.05; Pounds 10.55 for veg, Pounds 7.50 for fruit and
Pounds 1 flat rate delivery charge.
What's in it? 3 medium courgettes, one large swede, 5 large muddy
carrots, 4 onions, a bundle of runner beans (not too large or woody), head
of broccoli, one enormous kale cabbage, 4 stalks of rhubarb, 5 unripe
bananas, 2 oranges, 4 juicy peaches, 1 galia melon, 2 not-quite-ripe pears,
2 oranges, 4 ripe-ish peaches, bunch of grapes.
Value for money? Good; the fruit and veg kept me going for a week.
Food miles Pretty good. All the vegetables came from England, and most
of the fruit came from France or Spain, although the bananas were from the
Dominican Republic.
Website Basic, but easy to use.
Flexibility I couldn't see any way of avoiding getting certain foods in
the box, although there was one particular selection box where Farmaround
promises that it will never contain turnips, fennel, cabbage, beetroot or
anything else that fussy types might not like.
Delivery Nationwide. Two paper sacks of fruit and veg were left on my
doorstep during the day and were still there for me when I got home that
evening. The company will also leave them with a willing neighbour or hidden
in your garden; the driver will put a note through your door telling you
where they're stashed.
Verdict Great; the fruit in particular was exciting, not just apples,
pears and oranges. The food came in varying stages of ripeness, which is
useful as you don't want to have to eat everything immediately because it's
too ripe. The peaches decomposed (out of the fridge) fairly quickly, but
everything else had a decent shelf-life.
ORGANIC DELIVERY
www.organicdelivery.co.uk
Product small fruit and veg box.
Cost Pounds 14.95; free delivery over Pounds 13.95.
What's in it? Head of celery, two ears of corn, a long cucumber, 6
medium carrots, 6 bananas, 1 big and 1 small lettuce, 6 tomatoes, 2 red
peppers, 2 small heads of broccoli, 5 rosy apples with slightly wrinkled
skin, 2 large onions, 1kg new potatoes, 8 greengages.
Value for money? Pretty good, although the apples were unappealing;
also, the potatoes were complimentary with the first order, so aren't part
of the deal.
Food miles Apart from the cucumber from the Netherlands, bananas from
Ecuador and the onions from Argentina, everything is from Britain.
Website Attractive and easy to use, although, annoyingly, you can't
access any of the shopping pages until you register bank details.
Flexibility You can't adapt what's in the box to suit your taste.
However, you can select fruit and veg off a list rather than get a
pre-made-up box, thereby avoiding unwanted offerings.
Delivery Order by 4pm the day before you want your delivery, which is
pretty snappy compared with other companies, and the company delivers to
most places within the M25. If you're not in, the box will be left wherever
you instruct. Mine was left on the front porch covered in a black plastic
bin liner.
Verdict As this was a local delivery company I thought that the produce
might be a bit more adventurous and seasonal. It was nice to get the corn
and greengages, but the other fruit and veg were standard, although the
quality was good.
HOW THEY SHAPED UP
Delivery: Nearly all the deliveries were free, but the companies couldn't
specify what time the organic boxes would arrive. Tesco charges Pounds 5.99
for delivery but is much more flexible with delivery times (see the
supermarket panel right).
Food miles: Most of the vegetables were grown locally, but a surprising amount
of the fruit wasn't; there were pears from Argentina and apples from New
Zealand. This is probably because of the time of year; the European fruit
crop will be ripening in a week's time.
Keep it local: Choosing a box scheme that has a smaller distribution area can
mean that they are more innovative and flexible than the larger box
companies. Take a look at the organic directory at whyorganic.org for a
scheme near you.
BUYING OFF-THE-SHELF The organic-box market has a turnover of Pounds 78
million- Pounds 95 million a year, so it's not surprising that Marks &
Spencer, Sainsbury's and Tesco are jumping on the bandwagon. They have
announced that they will start their own organic-box schemes in the next few
weeks.
But why buy an organic box in the first place? Why not include the organic
vegetables in your weekly supermarket shop? To find out I bought some
organic produce from Tesco's home-delivery service to see how it compared.
TESCO
www.tesco.com
Product I selected organic fruit and veg from Tesco's online shopping
aisles to make up my own organic basket.
Cost Pounds 15.99; Pounds 10 on fruit and veg, and Pounds 5.99 for
delivery.
What's in it? 250g of green beans, 150g mange tout, 250g baby plum
tomatoes, 300g strawberries, bag of watercress, spinach and rocket salad, 6
portobello mushrooms, two pointed red peppers.
Value for money? The produce was reasonable but the delivery cost is
steep, given that most of the others are free.
Food miles tomatoes are from Spain, the green beans from Egypt, mange
tout from Zambia, peppers, watercress salad, mushrooms and strawberries from
England.
Website the order took me just under an hour from start to finish,
which doesn't compare well with the ten minutes that the other organic boxes
took. The website was difficult to use, counter-intuitive and
time-consuming. The "change my address" option took the longest.
After numerous attempts I rang the helpline. and managed to change my
address. However, by that time my basket had been emptied and I had to go
through the whole shopping process again.
Flexibility As Tesco doesn't do an organic box yet I could choose
whatever fruit and veg I wanted, which meant that I could avoid those boring
stalwarts, carrots and potatoes.
Delivery Not cheap; Pounds 5-Pounds 6.99. Tesco doesn't deliver to work
addresses or leave the produce outside, so you have to be there. It delivers
nationwide, from 9am to 11pm, in two-hour slots. My slot was 9am-11am and
the food arrived at 10.50am. That was fine, but I spent nearly two hours
wondering whether I had time to start the washing-up/pop to the postbox/go
to the loo.
Verdict There were less food miles than I expected, but there is
something wrong about buying your organic box from a supermarket. Where's
the mud? Where are the turnips? You know nothing about the farms where the
produce has come from, and that's part of the point.
SUPERMARKET vs BOXES
On a practical level organic boxes are stress-free purchases. Once you've set
up the order you'll get a weekly box of wholesome fruit and veg that make up
the backbone of your weekly shop, without having to leave the house.
But it can be this regularity that causes people to stop their order -no more
carrots, please! It's difficult to know what to do with a couple of pounds
of turnips every week. A supermarket shop allows some flexibility.
The supermarket delivery slots are also more flexible. Tesco delivers in
two-hour slots, between 9am and 11pm, seven days a week. All the organic-box
schemes tested here deliver on one day a week, and give no arrival time. If
you have nowhere safe for your box you have to be in all day.
With an organic box you know that much of the food is locally sourced,
seasonal, and at its optimum nutritionally. There are fewer food miles, the
farmer is paid a decent price for the produce and the money stays in the
local community. This isn't always the case with supermarkets.
For many people buying an organic box is a way of avoiding supermarkets
altogether. The trend is for people to know where their food is from and who
is producing it. Organic boxes are a good way of doing that.
