We all need to boost our fresh fruit and vegetables in our diet. A convenient veg box is a great way to do this and with Oddbox you rescue fruit and veg that are “too wonky” and “too many”. This fresh produce comes direct from farmers to your front door. With every deliciously odd fruit and veg box delivery you will be helping fight food waste.
Having a convenient veg box is a sustainable option, encourages a healthy diet and with delivery to your doorstep is convenient. It’s healthy, sustainable and supports small producers rather than large supermarkets. In Ealing, there is a wide variety of options and signing up to a veg box is easy, as there are lots of options, so try them out.
Why to choose a veg box?
- Straight to your doorstep: Fresh and local produce delivery right to your door. It saves you a trip to the shops with weighty bags of vegetable and fruits. Many boxes offer seasonal and organic produce.
- Try new vegetables and fruit: Veg boxes are a mixture of produce of what is available at the farm. It means that you get to try some interesting fruit and veg. Mary who gets an Oddbox for example has tried many produce she wouldn’t usually buy such as kiwi berries, rainbow carrots & purple sprouting. If you are worry you will end up with produce you dislike, most boxes let you exclude produce.
- Celebrate the Seasons: Buying and growing seasonal food is a great way to get healthy and help the environment. Many boxes minimise packaging especially plastic packaging. This contributes to climate change. For more info on seasonal food from National Trust and Hubbubs How to Seasonal guide to eating.
- Less waste: Did you know that £1bn of food is thrown away or fed to animals before it leaves farms every year? Felix Project said this includes 2m tonnes of edible surplus that does not make it to retailers. Most Fruit and veg are uniform on the retail shops shelves. This means the odd shapes, too big or too small are left at the farm unsold. With a convenient veg box you get all shapes and sizes but all with the great taste! It means less waste at the farm and tasty produce on your plate.
- Support British Farmers: Veg boxes helps the farmer to sell more of their produce. They also get a fairer price as larger supermarkets squeeze the profit from the farmers.
Want to make your diet more sustainable? City harvest has also put together this top 10 of sustainable foods.
Veg box reviews
With all these good reasons to try Veg boxes, go to BBC GoodFood reviews of the 9 best veg boxes. Also consider taking an allotment. So order a veg box today.
Another way of increasing fruit and veg is taking up an allotment. There are many to choose from around the borough of Ealing. Find out more from Ealing Allotments Partnership. By growing your own food, it makes you appreciate the effort it takes for others to produce what we eat.
Oddbox as a convenient Veg box
Mary who lives locally in Ealing, has Oddbox delivered to her every fortnight and on the alternate weeks Stir it up family meal kits every fortnight. With having veg boxes for over 15 years, Mary says about her deliveries:
I love opening up our veg boxes every fortnight to see what treats we have this week. It has helped with increasing our variety and amount of vegetables we eat. They also provide free recipes to inspire you.
Oddbox delivers veg boxes around Ealing. Their focus at Oddbox is on tackling food waste on farms. Around 1.2 billion tonnes of fruit and veg are lost at this stage of the food system annually. Around 25% of food waste in the UK happens on farms, more than retail, manufacturing and hospitality put together.
Fruit and veg can be at risk of going to waste on farms for all kinds of reasons, but it tends to be because its:
- “Too odd”: This is fruit and veg that won’t meet retailers’ strict cosmetic specifications. Too small, or an unusual shape or colour or marked in some way while growing.
- “Too many”: Sometimes the weather causes more crops to grow than predicted. Sometimes orders get cancelled. All too often, challenges around demand forecasting simply mean growers have more than is needed.
Sign up to Oddbox
When you sign up to Oddbox, you will be email a list of all the fresh fruit and vegetables Oddbox has rescued for your box. If you’re not a fan of something or have lots left over from your last fruit and veg delivery, you can choose up to 3 exclusions. To do this simply go to your ‘preferences’ in your account and edit your ‘exclusions’ list. Then you get a surprise as they replacing your exclusions with other freshly rescued fruit and veg.
Oddbox also have an options for Pick your own boxes which means you can swap out produce in your upcoming box. This means that you have more control over what you get and get what you will use. Mary has found this change great, as you can swap out whatever you have too much of. Some weeks I have too much carrots or onions so can swap it out for other fruit or veg we will eat, which has meant its a lot easier to keep up with the veg.
As much as 40% of food produced globally goes to waste. When food goes to waste, all the water and energy used to grow it is at risk of being lost too. Most people don’t realise it, but food waste is a climate issue and one of the most urgent ones at that.
To get you started here is discount off your first Oddbox delivery. Click here to sign up and get your discount.
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