Nifty Things--Food Co-ops

I've been participating in food co-ops since last summer. It's been such a great way for us to get a cheap and wide variety of produce. Here are some details about the ones I've used if you are interested.

The Community Food Co-op of Utah -- This is the one I started with. It's once a month, there's no limit on orders so no competition for slots, they offer a produce box and a meat box or a combined box. It's $10 for 3 kinds of fruit and 5 kinds of veggies, so a bit smaller than the others, but that can be nice for a smaller family. They ask that you do 2 hours of community volunteering for each order, but anything can count. They have a good website, lots of pickup places, and usually have lots of yummy 'add-ons' like tamales, stuff from Nutty Guys, bread, Colissimo's products, etc. They also usually have a longer pick-up window, 60-90 minutes. Usually they have boxes you can use to take your produce home in. You can order online for about the first half of the month, pick-up is usually the last Saturday of the month. Another nice thing is you get an email a few days before pick-up letting you know what you are getting (the others it's just a surprise the day of).

Bountiful Baskets -- $15 for a big box of half fruit half veggies. Plus a $1.50 handling fee each time, and a one-time $3.00 fee for first-timers. Some sites are every week, others are every other week. Each site is limited to 100 baskets. This site was recently featured on a bunch of news programs, so they have had to make a bunch of adjustments to handle the increased demand on their website and with how many sites they offer. Sometimes I've been frustrated with not being able to get my order in because of website overload. However, they've made a bunch of adjustments to help that, such as staggering the online ordering times and offering more sites (there are 3 reasonably close to my house now instead of 1). Here you must bring your own bags or boxes (a rolling cooler works GREAT). I've noticed that BB offers a bigger variety of fruits and veggies, sometimes things I wouldn't ordinarily try (like jicama, orange cauliflower, or kumquats), but that are fun to try anyway. They also have add-ons, the bread looks delicious and is a good price, I'm going to try that next. The pick-up window is just 15-20 minutes, and the website isn't too well-built. Ordering day is Monday.

Green Bee Produce - This one is new to me, we tried it for the first time last Saturday. It's $18 a box, no extra fees. There was a lot of fruit and veggies in the box, lots of regular ones, and a couple of unusual things too-- like leeks and mangoes. It's every week, has a 30 minute pick-up window, doesn't limit the amount of orders at each site, and you can set up a continual order so you don't have to go on the website each week. I also liked that it was already boxed up and ready to go, I didn't have to bring my own box or quickly transfer everything from a basket to my box, and there was no line. You can also order bread, but it looks a little more expensive, and it looks like they don't offer more add-ons than that. So I think it'll be one I experiment with a little more. I haven't figured out yet if the additional $1.50 gets you any more produce, but I might be willing to pay an extra $1.50 to not have to wait in line, drag a cooler, spend time on an inconvenient website ordering, etc. They also offer half shares designed for families of two.

Overall I've loved the co-op experience. I like to just pick up a produce share knowing it will be full of good things at a good price, instead of scouring the store ads looking for what produce is a good price each week and adding it to my grocery list. I'm also a big fan of Costco produce because it's great quality and a great price, but it is nice to do the co-ops and get more variety in smaller quantities :). It's so great there are so many options to participate in! We've been eating much more produce and more variety of produce.