Aussie Farmers Direct - some positive experiences

I mentioned Aussie Farmers Direct in my March In My Kitchen post, and some of you expressed interest in how I was finding it. The answer, in brief, is good. The answer in more extended form is below!

My investigation of Aussie Farmers Direct stemmed from a comment Johanna left when I mentioned crashing my bike, a direct result of trying to cycle home from our local fruit and vegetable markets with too much in my basket. I knew of Aussie Farmers Direct before then, in part because my parents used them for a while and in part as a result of other friends and Lisa at Bake Bike Blog talking about their experiences. For some reason I never looked into them for myself and, as a result, I hadn't realised how much choice there is in what you can order from them.

The company started in 2005 as a way of helping Australian Farmers deliver their food directly to customers. They use the analogy of the traditional milkman, and deliveries are made by local franchises on set days using vans and cooler boxes (for cold produce) or recyclable cardboard boxes (for fruit and vegetables). They pride themselves on distributing 100% Australian owned, grown and produced food, in a way that is sustainable for growers and buyers, is seasonal, and is convenient to customers. You can read more about them on their website.

What I hadn't realised until recently is that there are several ways of ordering from Aussie Farmers Direct. They do fruit and vegetable boxes, which are their best value produce options, but there are several varieties to choose from: a family pack of fruit and vegetables, containing 8-10kg produce ($39); a couples pack of fruit and vegetables, containing 6-8kg produce ($26); a couples pack of vegetables only ($26); a family pack of fruit only ($39); a couples pack of fruit only ($26); and organic versions of the mixed fruit and vegetable boxes ($59 family / $39 couples).

You can have a standing weekly order, but you can also have deliveries fortnightly or monthly, and it is easy to cancel or suspend if you are going to be away. It's all done online, which makes things easy too.

I like choosing fruit and still wanted to do some of our produce buying, so decided to use the couples vegetable only box as my standard order. I did try a mixed fruit and vegetable box the first time, to see what it provided, but my most recent orders have been vegetables only. I have a delivery per fortnight at this stage, so have had just three deliveries to date.

The deliveries thus far have included the following:

- Order 1, a mixed fruit and vegetable couples pack ($26, with a $10 discount for being a new customer)

• 6 brushed potatoes
• 1 brown onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 zucchini
• 1 broccoli
• 1 pak choy bunch
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 cucumber
• 1 gourmet lettuce
• 2 Pink Lady apples
• 2 Granny Smith apples
• 3 plums
• 2 bananas
• 3 nectarines

- Order 2, a vegetables only couples box ($26)

• 2kg bag of Royal Blue potatoes
• 1kg bag of carrots
• 3 corn ears
• 3 brown onions
• 1 zucchini
• 1 broccoli
• 1 red capsicum
• 1 bok choy bunch
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 gourmet lettuce

- Order 3, a vegetables only couples box ($26)

• 6 brushed potatoes
• 2 brown onions
• 2 carrots
• 1 zucchini
• 1 broccoli
• 1 green capsicum
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 iceberg lettuce
• 1 cucumber
• 1 cauliflower
• 1 butternut pumpkin

You can also make up a produce box to order only what you want, by selecting individual fruit and vegetable items in a similar manner to ordering online from a supermarket chain. If you do that, the cost is higher than getting a mixed pack, and probably higher than supermarket costs. Aussie Farmers Direct also does bakery items (bread and similar products), meat, dairy (milk, yoghurt, cheese) and a few prepared meal options (salads, pasta dishes, meat dishes). We don't have any need for those, but my parents had a dairy order going alongside their produce order for a while, and found it worked for them.

One of the main advantages for me so far is the variety in the vegetables we receive and thus use. I can't remember the last time I had corn on the cob, and I had forgotten how incredible it is simply boiled and eaten plain. I rarely buy pumpkin despite liking it. I can easily get through three tomatoes in a fortnight if they are delivered to me, but I might only use one if I was buying them myself. I have also found the produce to be fresh and uniformly high in quality. There were a couple of light brown patches on the cauliflower we received last week, but that is quite literally the only blemish we've had to date.

So delicious.

If you don't like lots of vegetables, and/or you buy produce to match a meal plan for the week, then the Aussie Farmers Direct system may have fewer benefits for you. However, the only vegetable both of us actively dislike is cucumber, and I find it easier to plan meals around what we receive than the other way around. For me, being provided with a box of vegetables and then working out how to use them works well.

There are some other disadvantages of the system, but not too many. The main is that we sometimes need more of something than we're provided, or I want a vegetable that isn't provided. I've got around this by having the delivery come fortnightly, which allows me to top-up and/or supplement around it. We get through 1kg of carrots each week, for example, so the 2 carrots in our latest box aren't going to go the distance.

Cost-wise, I do think the boxes work out cheaper, item for item, than buying the same things at regular prices in the supermarket. However, they are a bit more expensive than buying things from local markets or purchasing things on special at the supermarket. I'd estimate the cost difference for those examples at about $5, which may seem fair for having things arrive on your doorstep. Again, having a fortnightly delivery balances that out for us.

Before, we spent $25-$30 per week on fruit and vegetables at the markets, as well as $5-$7 on produce at the supermarket (mostly potatoes and onions, which add too much weight when cycling). In all, our fruit and vegetables came in around $30 - $35 per week.

Now, I seem to be spending about $20 - $25 per week on fruit and the few extra vegetables we need. With the average cost of $13 per week from Aussie Farmers Direct ($26 per fortnight), that takes the total to $33 - $38 per week. That is close enough to our previous costs to seem worthwhile to me.

As a final note, the couples vegetable box we're receiving fortnightly really does last two weeks when topped up with extra bits and pieces. This is the case both for quantity and quality, as vegetables are still fine two weeks later (perhaps as a result of coming fairly directly from farms, rather than going into the supermarket system).

Do you use Aussie Farmers Direct or a similar system? Any positive / negative experiences?

In case it's not automatically clear, this post was written without the knowledge or input of Aussie Farmers Direct and we purchased all of the items we've tried. 

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