The Shift to Subscription Fruit and Veg Boxes
I made a discovery recently that’s changed the way I eat: subscription fruit and veg boxes. I used to buy all my groceries at the supermarket and would, more often than not, be disappointed by the produce. It’s once in a blue moon that you’ll get an orange that tastes of anything; a rare treat to find good tomatoes. Even apples – which hail from our green and pleasant land – were a letdown.
Flavour wasn’t the only problem. Despite being a food lover (and having written a book about the link between diet and healthspan), I found myself reaching for pretty much the same produce every time. Bags of salad would always go in the basket, but carrots or beetroot wouldn’t. Courgettes and aubergines were a yes; cauliflower and squash barely got a look-in.
It’s not that I don’t like these foods – I like all food – I was just stuck in the habit of cooking the same things, and therefore, buying the same things. This meant that while I ate well, the variety of fruit and veg in my diet wasn’t huge. We now know that diversity – eating a wide range of foods across the year, as the seasons dictate – plays an important role in building a healthy gut microbiome, which in turn supports overall health.
But let me be honest with you: my main motivation in switching to produce boxes was to eat better apples. So I signed up to one of those boxes you see advertised on the tube. There are multiple companies that deliver a weekly selection of fruit and veg to your door, changing it depending on what’s in season. Most allow swaps – onions for potatoes, for example – and you can usually flag dislikes so you’ll never receive, say, bananas, if you have an aversion.
Since then, I’ve been on a mission to find the ultimate fruit and veg subscription box. And here, dear reader, are my findings. I’ve taken into account value for money, service, and – most importantly – quality when rating my eight boxes.
Oddbox, Medium Fruit & Veg Box
£17.99 (12 varieties)
I love Oddbox’s mission: reducing food waste by rescuing wonky, misshapen fruit and veg rejected by supermarkets for being “too ugly”, and selling it directly from grower to consumer. Of course, the produce is perfectly edible – nature didn’t intend all carrots to be straight and uniform, nor apples identical in size and colour.
The medium box is good value for two people (the small is, in my opinion, too small), and the variety is excellent. It’s also incredibly easy to swap items or skip a delivery if you’re away. The downside, for me, is that the quality isn’t always there, with some of the fruit a little tasteless and it’s not organic.
Rating: 3/5
Abel & Cole, Organic Fruit & Veg Box – Medium
£26.50 (9 varieties)
Abel & Cole is organic, which is, of course, reflected in the higher price. The medium box also offers less variety than some of the others, but the quality is generally good. As with most of these services, it’s very easy to swap items, skip deliveries, and add extras like milk, meat, bread and pantry staples – which is undeniably convenient.
I should say that I work from home most of the time, as does my husband, so I cook nearly all our meals from scratch and get through these boxes easily. The website suggests the medium box feeds three to four people for a week, but for us it felt on the small side – particularly given it only includes two types of fruit.
For me, that knocks it down on value for money. That said, if you’re regularly eating lunch out or not cooking every meal, it would probably be a better fit.
Rating: 3/5
Natoora, Peak Season Box
£40, (8-9 varieties)
Natoora is an online greengrocer that wants to help reconnect people to their food and the people who grow it. It prioritises seasonality and flavour over yield and uniformity, which of course comes at a cost to the consumer, but with enormous benefit. This Peak Season Box was filled with some of the most beautiful and interesting produce I’ve ever seen.
I got seasonal British apples, baby Italian artichokes, crimson radicchio, fresh and vibrant red spring onion, wonderfully bitter greens, and more. The Black Iberiko Winter tomatoes were so delightfully complex in flavour that they didn’t need any salt. There were kumquats (which I’ve never tried before) that tasted like sweet and sour candy, and rainbow chard that was as tasty as it was pretty. At £40, this box is more than double the price of most of the others, which has to be taken into consideration for your regular shop.
There’s the option to get it delivered every one, two, or four weeks and there are no swaps available – you get what you get. As the ingredients change every fortnight, I wouldn’t choose to get it every week (plus the price is high) but I’d get it every month to treat myself to the unparalleled flavour this fruit and veg provides.
Rating: 4/5
Seasonitaly by Vincenzo, Medium Italian Fruit and Vegetable Box
£49.99, (23 varieties)
If you’re an Italophile, this is the fruit and veg box for you. It’s generously filled with fine, restaurant-quality Italian produce. It’s seasonal, regional, and is enough to easily last two weeks.
For 30 years, its founder, Vincenzo Zaccarini, has been supplying top UK restaurants with Italian fruit and veg from the best organic growers in Italy, and having tasted the contents of the box, I can see why the top chefs love his stuff. Everything is exceptional: from the Sicilian blood oranges exploding with their tangy enticing flavour to the multi-coloured peppers with their fresh, sweet, crunch to four different types of prettily-hued radicchio, boastful in their pinks and purples.
I especially loved the inclusion of many bitter greens (a flavour we under-appreciate here) such as puntarelle, cima di rapa and escarole – which I’ve never managed to find in the UK before. The latter comes from the region of Campania and was my nonna’s favourite, so it really made me smile to see it. I cooked it with white beans and anchovies and it was one of the most delicious dishes I’ve eaten in ages – even if I say so myself.
I also enjoyed a warning that came with the “spiky” artichoke – a variety from Sardinia with genuinely sharp leaves. “BE CAREFUL!” it said, in caps.
The value for money here is excellent, the variety thrilling, the service seamless and the quality out of this world.
Rating: 5/5
Riverford Seasonal Organic Fruit & Veg Box – Medium
£23.95 (9 varieties)
If organic is important to you (and I think it should be), Riverford is a brilliant choice. This seasonal box was packed with beautiful produce – particularly the bags of fresh, fragrant salad leaves.
I love that you can add extras like their exceptional sourdough, and that they champion the best of British ingredients, from wild garlic to leeks and potatoes. It’s very well priced considering the quality and the fact that it’s organic, and they also offer recipe kits for anyone wanting a shortcut to quick, nutritious meals.
You can tailor your box, too: opting for 100 per cent British produce, zero packaging, or a “quick” selection made up of veg that can be prepped and cooked in 30 minutes. I’ll definitely be a repeat customer.
Rating: 5/5
The Organic Delivery Company, Medium Fruit & Vegetable Box
£22.50, (11 varieties)
The Organic Delivery Company isn’t as well known as some of its rivals, but its produce is just as tasty. It offers more varieties of fruit and veg in one box than some of the others and is brilliant value for money.
It’s all certified organic, super fresh and seasonal. You can log any likes and dislikes you have and order boxes that are entirely plastic free (though, most of them are anyway). The quality of everything was great and the amount was super generous.
Rating: 4/5
Daylesford, Market Garden Vegetable Box
£15, (5 varieties)
For anyone who doesn’t know, Daylesford is a farm and upmarket food and home store in the Cotswolds. They don’t offer a box as such – at least not something you could rely on in place of your weekly shop – but instead a taster of their freshest farm produce. It’s only five varieties but they did seem as if they’d just been pulled out of the ground – the turnips were still muddy.
While everything tasted perfectly good, it wasn’t noticeably better than some of the other boxes, which offer far greater variety and quantity. There’s also no fruit included.
Rating: 2/5
Fruit4London, Fruit & Vegetable Box – Medium
£24.90 (14 varieties)
Non-Londoners, look away now – this one only delivers within the capital. But if you are London-based, it’s a great option. You can’t make swaps, but there’s a good range of seasonal fruit and veg, alongside staples like apples and bananas.
We received excellent oranges and tomatoes, tart, flavourful blueberries, two types of apples and more. I was also pleased to see garlic included – an essential in my kitchen, and something missing from many of the other boxes. It’s very good value for money and the service was spot on. That said, if you’re a serious foodie looking for more unusual or specialty produce, this might not be the one for you.
Rating: 3/5
