Abel and Cole

[Helsbells]

We are with Riverford, they are good, not sure how they compare price wise to Abel and Cole, but they are still cheaper than buying all your organic veg from the supermarket. Plus I think we have probably halved out plastic waste because nearly everything comes in compostable boxes.

My only criticism is that on a couple of occasions we have had rather stringy runner beans.

[oldjerry]

I spose it was a bit unreasonable to go off like that,I just rankled at the 'everything organic' stuff,as though trucking'organic' veg in from europe(or beyond) is somehow more ethical than something grown'inorganically'up the road.
As far as Only British meat goes,I think Morrisons do that!! Anyhow,may their business expand,prosper and employ many poverty-stricken Eastern Europeans,..

Oh Dave New World that hath such people in it........(You've guessed it,I need a drink).

[Thomzo]

Well sorry to be another A&C fan, but I've been using them for years and think they're great. You can exclude things you don't like (or have a glut of). They have been very reliable; they managed to deliver my veg in the middle of the snow when the post man couldn't get here.

Zoe

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I've no particular beef with A&C (they don't deliver to the South Vendée, so it's hard to have an opinion), but I think it is fair to say that "organic" does not necessarily equate with "ethical" or "environmentally friendly."

One of the most barren and depressing farms I ever visited was one producing "organic" root veg and brassicas. There wasn't anything to be seen in the way of wildlife or wild plants, the soil was in an appaling condition and the amount of fuel they were burning to feed the continual mechanical cultivation was staggering. The farm manager told me quite frankly that all the pickers were illegals (Poles mainly - this was a decade ago) to whom he paid sub-minimum wages.

Didn't mention any of that on the packaging....

[Millymollymandy]

That's sad Jon. I prefer environmentally friendly to organic as you can use all sorts of 'organic' pesticides which will kill every insect around and still call your produce organic..... I've never had a veg box for obvious reasons but would prefer to shop for my produce where I can see where everything is coming from - i.e. I would avoid apples from Argentina (what?!!!) and buy stored apples from France or local countries (to me) like Spain. For us produce from Spain is no different from someone in southern England buying Scottish raspberries anyway.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

These days the only things I'll buy that aren't at least European in origin are those that can't be - bananas (though Martinique is part of France so strictly speaking is also part of Europe ) and the odd pineapple or avocado.

I don't really trust "organic" anymore. I'm increasingly inclining to the view that may well be preferable to make the occaisional, modest and targeted use of some pesticides. Not the routine drenching approach, which I still believe is bad both for human health and the environment, of course, but for tacking specific problem areas.

Myself, I've used glyphosphate for the first time this year on a patch of brambles I cleared by hand and with fire: when the new shoots appeared I sprayed each individually with a little pistol spray. The potatoes now growing in that patch my not be organic by Soil Association standards but by my standards I believe them to be wholesome and produced in a manner not unduly harmful to the wider environment.

Hope I don't hurt meself getting off this high horse

[oldjerry]

There is'nt a ladder tall enough for me to ever dismount! Specially where the SA are concerned.The perfect marketing brand,they create their own ideal,persuade everyone it's what they should all aspire to,and mask the fact that in order to produce the product in sufficient quantities to make it worthwhile to mass market,you by definition have to ditch the principles behind the original notion .Brilliant !

[wulf]

For quite a while now, I've been on the same kind of "as local as possible, and European at least (except for bananas) as Jon describes. However, I've been reading How Bad are Bananas? by Mike Berners-Lee, which is interesting stuff. It looks at the CO2 equivalent costs of a whole range of things and, according to the author, things don't stack up the way one might think.

FWIW, bananas are described as not that bad at all (sea freighted, able to last a long time if picked when green and with the main weakness that all you can buy belong to the Cavendish variety, which makes a bananapocalypse likely when something pops up to blight it). However, because sea freight carries such large volumes, it makes the shipping cost per item relatively inconsequential compared to the road network used at either end of the trip. It means that apples from New Zealand might at least be no worse than European (or even ones from your particular country) if the latter have been stored long past their usual season with extensive use of climate-controlled rooms.

I'm still chewing over that (although there is no argument that out of season produce air-freighted from the far side of the world is anything but bad). It does mean that a company like Abel & Cole could be doing it's environmental impact sums honestly even if a lot of the produce is not local. There shouldn't be a need when UK fields are in full production but we are only just coming out of the "hungry gap" so perhaps understandable in late winter / early spring.

Wulf

[MKG]

"... if the latter have been stored long past their usual season with extensive use of climate-controlled rooms."

The point being, I would have thought, that lots of things (including apples) do not need the use of climate-controlled rooms if they're stored correctly. If that weren't so, then we'd have been in great trouble a few thousand years ago.

My great grandmother knew how to store apples and had never heard of climate control.

Mike

[oldjerry]

,we store apples by wrapping them in newspapers (or waxed papers,when we had the money).Annie Elizabeth will keep until late April.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

It's true that sea-freighting is very efficient in energy terms, so bananas are probably no worse than stuff transported within Europe. I'm a bit hazy about how other fruit such as pineapples are moved around, but I do know that a lot of easily perishible stuff (green beans from Kenya!) is air freighted.

Informative labelling would be a help, ("Air Freighted to Maximise Impact!") but that is hardly likely to happen.

Another concern I have is that some countries (cf Kenya) are growing unfamiliar crops for cash export at the expense of more traditional stuff, are poluting their world with pesticide and fertiliser residues, and are using disproportionate amounts of precious water so that we can heve out-of-season veg.

This seems not only ludicrous but somehow immoral.

[Green Aura]

Another concern I have is that some countries (cf Kenya) are growing unfamiliar crops for cash export at the expense of more traditional stuff, are poluting their world with pesticide and fertiliser residues, and are using disproportionate amounts of precious water so that we can heve out-of-season veg.

And only a tad less ludicrous and immoral than them dedicating even more land to producing flowers!!!!!

[oldjerry]

[quote="The Riff-Raff Element"]It's true that sea-freighting is very efficient in energy terms,


True enough,but see previous thread re: Slave conditions on board merchant shipping.

[wulf]

The point being, I would have thought, that lots of things (including apples) do not need the use of climate-controlled rooms if they're stored correctly. If that weren't so, then we'd have been in great trouble a few thousand years ago.

If you rely on your own trees, have a mix of varieties, are only storing to provide for a relatively small group of people, can check regularly for ones that have gone bad and don't mind a few that look at bit ugly, you certainly don't need to bother with climate controlled storage (even more so if you are able to accept that fresh apples don't have to be available 12 months of the year). One of the reasons we're in trouble now is that few of those assumptions hold in a supermarket economy.

I did take a quick look at the Abel and Cole website and tracked down the information about their apples in their medium fruit box. Disappointingly, despite an inspiring story about honestly produce apples from a farm in Kent, I notice the actual statement of origin says "UK/Holland/South Africa/New Zealand" and doesn't give any information about shipping or storage methods.

Wulf

[Stonehead]

We've given up growing and selling produce locally. Customers expect "local" veg boxes to contain out of season produce, they expect exotics that would never grow in Scotland, and they expect prices to match those of the supermarkets. They also don't want "old-fashioned" veg.

A typical example: a work colleague of the OH's expressed an interest in our produce until she discovered that, in the middle of a Scottish winter, we could only supply winter lettuce, cabbage, kale, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, beets, neeps, dried herbs and the like. She wanted to know why we couldn't supply her with the produce that a "local" box scheme provides: avocados, bananas, nectarines, sugar snap peas, peppers, chillies, courgettes, mixed salad leaves and so on.

Any attempt to explain the realities of growing fruit and vegetables in Scotland to people like that is rejected, usually along the lines of "you're just making excuses" or "you shouldn't be doing this if you won't give customers what they want".

On top of that, the overwhelming majority of potential customers want the local, green, chemical-free, green, small-scale produce—but only at the supermarket price (or less) of industrially produced produce from countries with lower overheads.

It's the same with pork, chicken and eggs.

After seven years doing this, I'm firmly convinced the overwhelming majority of people are total hypocrites when it comes to food production.