Box Bush Organics is a new venture for Miles and Liz Bradley. We decided to sell boxes of Organic fruit and vegetables because we believe strongly that this is the best way to feed our children (and ourselves!). We were fed up with buying supermarket organics that were wrapped in cling-film, came from 15 different countries and didn’t taste any different to non-organic food and we wanted to do what we could to support our local community by sourcing our food as locally as possible.
About the Initiative
Box Selection: We put together a selection of boxes (see below) based on what is available each week.
Local Produce: We aim to do this as locally as possible, obviously bananas represent a bit of a challenge! And it is fair to say that quality is also important so if the local product is not acceptable we may have to use imported at some times of year.
Organic produce: We only purchase from registered organic farmers and buy what is in season.
Fair Price: We aim to pay a fair price to the farmer (on average farmers in the U.K. get 9p for every £1 you spend at the supermarket).
Food miles: We want to put as few food miles on the boxes as we can in getting them to you so we want to organise central drop off points.
Schools: Primary schools are ideally placed to act as drop of points, as boxes can be collected with children. However, we defeat the object if suddenly lots of parents drive to school when they wouldn’t otherwise. So, we are considering offering bags/back packs rather than boxes to encourage walking or asking parents to get together into local clusters so that boxes can be dropped at one parent’s house to pass on to their friends and neighbours. See our scheme
Fund raising: Any large groups that can organise themselves in this way will qualify for a donation based on the numbers and we are particularly keen to support PTAs in this way with fundraising.
Education: We believe the links with primary schools are particularly important in helping children to understand the values that we are encouraging. We are happy to support, both with produce and ideas any schools wishing to set up healthy eating clubs.
