Washington’s Green Grocer

My vegetable selection when I go grocery shopping is pretty limited.  I buy the same few every time.  Broccoli is a very common side dish in my house…steamed broccoli, roasted broccoli, yup, that’s about it.  So I thought if I joined one of those CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) or some other vegetable delivery service, maybe I’d broaden my horizons and be forced to add more greens to my family’s meals.

As if she was reading my mind, my sister-in-law posted this picture on Facebook:

She had just received her first delivery from Washington’s Green Grocer of fruits, vegetables and even bread and cheese.  Within 24 hours, I was signed up along with another friend of mine.  Good news spreads quickly! 

So here’s what I love about this company….first of all they support locally grown foods and sustainable agriculture.  Their site says

During our local growing season, roughly June through November, we buy our produce locally. As a general rule, if an item is on our weekly list, and is available locally, we’re buying it locally.

Second, their customer service has been excellent so far.  There was a bit of a mix-up with my first delivery date, and I received a quick response from owner, Zeke, himself and everything was cleared up. 

One reason I always hesitate when joining the local CSAs is I had to choose how long I was willing to commit….3 months, 6 months, a whole year?!  I just couldn’t do it without knowing for sure whether I would like it or not.   But with Washington’s Green Grocer, there’s no contract, no commitment.  But I am confident once you join, you will stick with it.  Why?  Check out my vegetable box:

This is their small organic box for $37.75.  It came with the following:

This lasted my family of 4 a week, although I do have 1 kid who eats zilch for vegetables and another who doesn’t eat very much.  I started out with an every other week delivery but I think I will switch to every week.  We gobbled up all the fruit pretty quickly, and just FYI, the 1 gala apples does not mean we only received 1 apple!  The quantities were actually a bunch of broccoli, 3 zucchinis, 2 avocados, 2 grapefruit, 3 or 4 apples, a bunch of bananas, 6 kiwis, 4 or 5 portabello mushrooms and two large heads of green leaf lettuce.  The 3 items that are crossed out I had put on my “never send” list.  See how great this service is?  You can go through a whole list of fruits and vegetables and click on items you don’t want at all (what is “tatsoi”??).    No sense getting something you will never eat. 

Other options are all fruit and all vegetable boxes.  There is also a mix of organic and conventional produce box for a little cheaper, which I’m thinking about getting instead of 100% organic.  But that’s the beauty of this company, you can change any time you want, adding boxes, canceling boxes, and you can even swap out items in your box up until the day before delivery.  And as you saw in my sister-in-law’s box, she ordered bread and other non-produce items, which are available a-la-carte. 

The perks of this service just keep flowing onto the keyboard.  I just received my weekly email report from Green Grocer.  It told me what is expected in this week’s box along with some recipes…this is perfect if you are a planner like me and need to figure out what other items to buy for your weekly shopping trip.  And do I even need to mention how great this is for the budget?  A fixed expense for your fruits and vegetables every week.  The finance person in me loves this!

So if you are in the local delivery area you should check them out.  And if you decide to purchase a box, please tell them you heard about them through Everyday Road to Healthy.  No, we don’t get anything from them, I’m just a firm believer in letting people know that they were referred for being great.  It’s nice to be appreciated!