No plastic wrap! That sure was the theme throughout my first Abel & Cole organic fruit and vegetable box I had delivered. I have been torn between supporting the local supermarkets organic selection for my main bulk of organic veg, or supporting a smaller independent company that deal directly with the farmers for some time now.
Initially you see I thought that buying more organic fruit and vegetables from a local supermarket would help this sector to grow and therefore better things will come of it. But my conscience got the better of me, as not all supermarkets are the same, and not all are doing great things for the planet – or for the farmers that sell their organic produce in these supermarkets. So I took the plunge and decided to order a weekly fruit and veg box with Abel and Cole, and see how I got on.
The first thing that struck me when I opened my first delivery, which came as three stacked cardboard boxes was that there was not a single plastic wrap on any of the veggies or fruit! All of them came without – this instantly won them huge brownie points! As not all plastic is recyclable, and it still wastes energy to have to recycle the plastic and make it into something else. So it is just far better to not create so much waste in the first place. If you look at the pictures everything was laid out super neat, and all of it came fresh and none of it was rotten!
I ordered a selection from Abel & Cole, and not just a fruit and veg box as they conveniently offer dry goods like rice, pasta etc, toiletries, baby food and cleaning products to be delivered with your fruit and veg box. Some of my extra’s were: coconut milk, almonds, a chocolate bar, fresh ginger, beetroot, carrots and gem squash.
The contents of my medium size fruit and veg box was as follows:
6 Bananas
5 med/large carrots
1 large bunch of chard
4 single clementines
5 medium cosmos potatoes
6 single kiwi fruit
1 large suede
2 medium sweet potatoes
1 medium punnet white mushrooms
2 med/large white onions
The total price for my medium sized organic fruit & veg box, with the contents above came to £17.50.
Positive Points
I was really happy with the fresh non-spoiled selection of fruit and vegetables that were delivered. My order came perfectly too, no mistakes, nothing missing. I even chose to take out an item from this weeks box and swap it for something else. Which this week was the tomatoes, and they instead gave me sweet potatoes. I loved the convenience of doing all my order online, adding other grocery items and cleaning products to my delivery. The lack of plastic on the fresh goods was also excellent – better for the produce and therefore better for my body. As most plastic wrap often contains xenoestrogens which mimic the female hormone oestrogen and can cause many problems from endometriosis (which I used to have) to infertility. They also gave me a welcome brochure explaining all about how to store my veg and fruit correctly, recipes, to information about the company and managing your account. Plus the second brochure that came was a really cute little Christmas recipe booklet with some easy recipes. Also they gave me a receipt which clearly showed what I ordered and how much I paid. The delivery by the way was only 99p! Cheap as chips.
Negative Points
There were three negatives. One being and this is always the only one I come across for organic produce – is that overall the fruit and veg (and all other goods I bought this time) were slightly more expensive than the supermarkets organic produce. And is quite a bit more expensive than conventionally grown produce. But conventionally grown fruit and veg is very bad for your health due to the toxic chemicals used on them. So if this is the only down fall, then I would rather take my chances as not eating organic produce in the long run will cost you far more in medical bills from the diseases that they can contribute. The lack of packaging meant that the loose veg items stored in my fridge went off slightly quicker. The third negative here was if you do not like something in your box, yes you may be able to skip it and take it out of your box and swap it for something else – but they choose what you swap it for. Having done this two weeks in a row now, I swapped something again the second time and got red potatoes instead which would have been fine had I not have ordered white potatoes too. For two people that is a lot of potatoes and I do not like wasting food.
Overall Rating
So based on my negative versus positive points I am going to rate them 3/5 green leaves on the Great Health Naturally rating chart. Overall I felt very happy with the service, food content and quality of my organic fruit and vegetables delivered, even the price of delivery was superb. I am going to have to figure out how to store the items that say can be kept in the fridge though as I would like some to last me a bit longer. If they could give you some options of what you can swap the items you dislike in that weeks box for that would also be great.
