Most nights I am home to answer the door to the many spuikers and energy company people who want me to defect in one way or another. My usual response is to use my still-at-work Partner in Crime (PIC) as a foil. If the person at the door wants to sign me up to the great deals at Company A, I say something similar to 'Oh my PIC works for Company A and we get unbelievable discounts already'. PIC is amazing, working for telephone companies, all the major utility companies and probably the odd bank.
Sometimes I do get reasonable offers such as signing up for home delivery of The Age and recently, I signed up to a group called Aussie Farmers Direct. Aussie Farmers Direct source fresh food from Australian producers and growers and deliver to your door once a week. As well as various fruit and vegetable packs, they also have milk, eggs, coffee, bread, butter and cheeses.
The very nice guy at the door, an Englishman on a working holiday helped convince me that I should buy Australian grown produce. It made sense at the time and still does but I must have been swept up a little by the prospect of getting fruit and vegetable delivered because the fact remains, we are very lucky in Australia. We can source Australian grown fruit and vegetables all year round and though I have tried the idea of being a locavore, I false start when it comes to the colder months without tomatoes, cucumbers and just about every summer vegetable you can think of. The prospect of a winter dining on such greenery as broccoli (even though I do love it), silverbeet and peas may take a bit more planning on my part. But then again Spring is now here and I can think about it next year.
As I scanned the price list I did notice that most things were quite reasonably priced so I bought a Couples Pack of Fruit and Vegetable which contained 8 regular items such as potatoes, carrots, apples as well as 4-6 seasonal items such as mandarins, strawberries and avocado. The fruit and vegetable pack was $25 which is about the amount I spend at the green grocer each week. I also bought some butter, a dozen free range eggs and some OJ. I signed up and sent the friendly Englishman into the night.
When the items arrived in a nice cardboard box, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. The only minor criticism was the size of the two bananas. They were tiny things but everything else looked and tasted as I expected. A sidebar now: 'looked and tasted as I expected' means that they were blemish free, glossy and clean. A shame that I neglect to tell myself that pesticides and various intensive agricultural practices brought such beauty to my table but that is another issue.
Anyway, the other day I decided to do a price comparison between Aussie Farmers Direct, Safeway and the local green grocer. The results were surprising with costs coming in at $25, $24.25 and $24.26 respectively. I expected Safeway with its buying power would come out much cheaper. I thought the green grocer being a small business would be considerably more expensive though I guess behind the facade of a charming green grocer may hide a fruit and vegetable mogul with shops all over the place. I would say the main difference is the distribution of my $25 (or so) at each of these places given their respective overheads (or lack of) and differing company structures.
A few notes:
Some of the calculations are based on per kilogram prices whereas I received some of my items pre-packaged, such as the mushrooms and spinach. Given the choice, I rarely purchase pre-packaged due to the expense and extra packaging.
As much as possible I chose the same sized fruit and vegetable in my comparisons. The green grocer for example sell two lots of Sundowner apples at different prices based on the size of the fruit.
I am not a fruit and vegetable price watcher and do not know whether there are peaks and falls in prices throughout the week but I recorded my prices on a Thursday and as good experiments go, I should probably take a few price readings over the next few weeks. I guess my intention is not to prove anything 'earth shattering' as to be hailed on those tv shows that like to believe such things are.
I am not sure whether I would like to receive a 2kg bag of potatoes each week as well as a 500g bag of carrots as we don't like root vegetables that much.
Also note that this entry is not a covert rant about the evils of any of the companies, it is just a price comparison that I wanted to perform as a point of interest. I do not work for nor am I associated with any of the companies, except as a customer.
For now, I will continue ordering my green groceries in a box as I like the philosophy behind Aussie Farmers Direct and also the surprise of what I'll receive on my doorstep and planning various meals around each week's produce. Also, for some reason, I am not a very big fan of fruit so getting various fruits may help me to eat a lot more than I do.
Aussie Farmers Direct
www.aussiefarmers.com.au
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