Abel & Cole - delivering organic smugness right to your door!

I’m only pokin’ fun at the whole “eat organic/local/food miles/ Jamie Oliver wants to save your children from eating dinosaur shaped chicken gristle” sensation that’s been sweeping the nation as of late. Truth is, I love Abel & Cole and have been shopping with them for over a year now. I came home one day to find their flyer wedged in our mailslot and was immediately hooked on the idea of having a box of organic and ethically sourced fruit and veg delivered weekly. So I am here to sing the praises of their efforts and hopefully recruit a few customers for them as well. (Make sure you tell ‘em who sent ya so I get a free bottle of vino!)

How it works is you first check to see if they deliver in your area (if you live in Brighton, they do and they deliver on Wednesdays). Then you set up your account and pick which of their several fruit and/or veg bundles you’d like delivered each week. They even have a guide that will tell you what size is appropriate depending on how many people are in your household. There’s nothing more depressing than having to throw out loads of rotten veggies because you couldn’t get around to cooking them. It’s my grandmother’s influence. Anyone that lived through the Depression can’t throw food away. This woman will save a tablespoon of baked beans rather than throw it out (or maybe finish it? Yeah. That seems like a better option.) We started out with the Small Mixed Box but now we order the Small Deluxe Veg box and order 1 or 2 fruits in addition. We also get our milk, eggs and sometimes wine (great selection, by the bottle or case), cheese and Ecover products from them too. And their sausages-OH. The sausages. So delicious and about as organic and ethical as you can get, before the actual killing bit anyways. The prices of most of their organic meat is very reasonable and they also do fish. The fisher in Cornwall that supplies A&C is apparently the only one in the UK that doesn’t use those long lines that destroy the rest of the sealife. Help me out here people, it’s late and I can’t think of what it’s called. Also, if anyone is interested in shopping seasonally, this is the place to start. I’ve learned so much about what is and isn’t in season just from using Abel & Cole. I thought I’d cry at the sight of another apple or banana last winter and couldn’t have been more excited when they started selling blood oranges in January.

What’s great about A&C is that you can look in your fridge, decide that you are already too overrun with courgettes, log-on and mark a little frowny-face next to courgettes. You can mark it permanent or just for the one week. This is really handy as you can also mark which foods are you faves (for me it’s avocados, asparagus, mangos, berries and mushrooms) and they will try to substitute those when they can. Every week your box will come with a nice newsletter that tells you all about the farmers that grow A&C’s produce (who knew that it takes 4 years before the first crop of organic asparagus sprouts up?) and some snazzy recipes too, the whole lot of which can be found on the website. Your account details are also on here; you set up a direct debit with them and the charges come out on the following working day. Their customer service people are incredibly helpful; once I was given some lettuce that went off the day after delivery and they credited my account most promptly.

As far as delivery is concerned, the reason you can’t choose your day or your timeslot is so that they can be on the road as little as possible. What I’ve done is send them a key to my building so that they can leave it inside the door, otherwise it wouldn’t last long on my doorstep, which is a place of not only inebriation and copulation but also one of drug-doing and poo’ing. I know. I can’t believe it either yet- some part of me can believe it. Other options to sending them a key are alternate delivery places or leaving it with a neighbour. They’re very accomodating like that.

So if all my raving hasn’t you clicking furiously to set up an account with them, here are a couple more tasty tidbits about A&C:

1-They were voted as one of the top 50 employers by the Financial Times (always good to know that you’re supporting someone who looks after their employees ie not The Man) and
2-They run a non-profit scheme for schools that not only provides a similar service to parents, but also earns money for each school that is involved. It’s called the Farmer’s Choice and it costs nothing to set up OR run. Selling 50 bags per week can earn £3000 for your child’s school so if you think they would be interested, definitely pass on the info! They provide a free launch/set-up pack, complete with sample bags and free apples for the kids.Oh, and I’ve found that we eat way more veggies during the weeks that we’ve had a delivery. That’s always a good thing, ya?