Swerve supermarket queues with our pick of the best fruit and vegetable delivery boxes on the market. Fresh, seasonal and fuss-free, these encourage you to try new things – all while supporting small businesses and local farmers. Win win.
Best Fruit & Vegetable Delivery Boxes
Riverford
Riverford began as one man and a wheelbarrow delivering home grown organic veg to friends. Thirty years on, it stands as one of the UK’s most successful vegetable box schemes, delivering the goods to around 50,000 customers a week. Ethics are fundamental to the brand: self-confessed veg nerd Guy Singh-Watson has always believed that organic food should not be elitist, but accessible for everyone – and he built the business to give a fair deal to all: growers, staff, customers and the planet. All Riverford boxes are filled with organic freshly picked produce, with various different types to choose from including a seasonal box and a zero-packaging box.
When restaurants shut down during lockdown, grocery wholesaler All Greens saw its sales plummet 80 per cent overnight. But instead of saying goodbye to the business, owner David Josephs set up an online delivery service, which includes fruit and veg delivery boxes. Orders shot up following a recommendation on Instagram from none other than Yotam Ottlolenghi, whose restaurants use All Greens supplies. The Big Family Fruit & Vegetable Box will feed a family of five for three to four days, while the Berry Plus Box is packed to the brim with fruit.
Food delivery service Kurami is all about nourishing the body – so it’s no surprise fruit and vegetable delivery boxes were added to its offering during the previous lockdown. Each box contains two or three root vegetables, four or five other vegetables, three fruits, garlic, onion and some fresh herbs – as well as some eggs thrown in for good measure.
Having been in the business for over 30 years, Abel & Cole knows a thing or two about seasonal food delivery. The much-loved brand offers a variety of different fruit and veg boxes, all of which contain only organic produce from British farms. The origin of each product is then listed within the box, allowing customers to rest assured they’re supporting small, homegrown farms. There are numerous boxes to choose from, varying in size and selection – all delivered to your door in recyclable packaging.
Enjoy delights from Daylesford’s organic farm straight to your door with their newly launched vegetable delivery box. In keeping with the brand’s core farm-to-table values, the contents of The Daylesford Market Garden Vegetable Box will always be organic, British, and picked, washed and dispatched within a matter of hours. The vegetables vary each week according to what’s in season, but each box will contain six different types of produce from the Market Garden, which sits over 25 acres of organic farmland. Head Gardener Jez and his team grow many unusual heritage varieties here so expect some unique inclusions.
On a mission to cut food waste, OddBox works closely with farmers to rescue seasonal surplus fruit and vegetables that are at risk of going to landfill due to minor imperfections. This not only reduces food waste, it saves carbon dioxide emissions and unnecessary water use. The subscription box company also donates 10 per cent of its produce to charity, including food redistribution charity City Harvest. Some boxes contain both fruit and veg, others just one, with a variety of sizes to choose from including boxes to suit individuals, couples and families.
