All over social media, I’m seeing stories of people who are struggling to get online shopping delivery slots, with users of some supermarket websites being placed in a queue just to access the site before they can even check for available delivery times.
But there IS another way – without having to brave the supermarkets and the inevitable crowds of people who still don’t understand just how important social distancing really is.
There are plenty of local food and drink businesses offering to deliver their wares to our doors – including the lovely Landgirls Groceries, who launched at the start of April.
Delivering to BS1, BS2, BS4, BS5, BS6, BS7, BS15 and BS16, Landgirls Groceries deliver fruit and veg boxes, as well as an ever-increasing range of other grocery products. Bread, milk (plus non-dairy alternatives), butter, yoghurt, coffee and tomato plants are all on offer – with local cheeses and more coming soon.
Landgirls Groceries work with local producers – The Bristol Loaf, Yeo Valley, Chew Valley Dairy, Paxcroft Farm – and local wholesale markets to source their produce. Place your order before 3pm, and it’ll be delivered the next working day (delivery is free), sometime between 10am and 6pm. And I love their approach to food waste, too, with any surplus produce donated to the National Food Service to combat food poverty.
The minimum order value is just £6 (the price of a small veg box), and each order must include either a fruit or veg box in order to qualify for delivery – fair enough, as they’re only a small team!
When I first looked at the website, I thought the prices seemed very reasonable: a £6 small veg box includes five different vegetable varieties, and there’s also a £10 standard box (which always includes potatoes and onions) and a £7 salad box. You can also choose individual fruit, veg and salad items as add ons.
We eat a LOT of veg in our house…and the toddler gets through an insane amount of fruit each week. So, for us, the bumper veg and salad box (£14) and the fruit box (£7) seemed to make sense.
The first week we ordered, the £14 box promised Maris Piper potatoes, brown onions, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, spinach, plum tomatoes, mangetout, spring onions, cucumber and avocado. The £7 fruit box, meanwhile, was set to include bananas, apples, red grapes and plums.
Ordering via the website was incredibly easy, and communication was great: an email to confirm that the order had been received, and a further email from Stef and Holly later that day to confirm that our groceries would be delivered the following day.
On the day, we were impressed with the customer service: after opening the door and standing back, the box was placed inside with a smile, and with an offer to carry it upstairs to our flat if it was too heavy. They’re clearly keen to cater to customer needs as much as they possibly can, too: we were asked if there was anything specific we’d like to be added to the website, and were told that they’re looking into adding both cakes and tuck shop goodies down the line.
Delivered in a large cardboard box complete with Landgirls Groceries sticker on top, our groceries were sensibly packaged: some items loose, others contained within brown paper bags to keep them together. Everything was as expected (apart from one red onion in among the brown onions, and oranges instead of the promised plums), but we were impressed with both the quantities, and how the produce looked.
And we were impressed with the way it tasted and how long it lasted, too – if you needed another reason to ditch the mainstream supermarket deliveries, shelf life is one to bear in mind! My only slight niggle was that the number of potatoes included wasn’t enough to last us a full week.
We were so impressed that we ordered a second delivery the following week – and added extra potatoes and sweet potatoes to our order. We were just as impressed with both the service and produce again (including an email that recognised that this was our second order) – and with our delivery arriving on VE Day, we were surprised and touched to see that the girls had included four scones and a little pot of jam as an extra treat!
We’ve been really impressed with Landgirls Groceries – the service, the produce, the availability, the price – and we’ll be continuing to order from them regularly. If you live in one of the postcode areas they cover, I’d definitely recommend giving them a try – head over to their website to place your first order!
[…] at least one or two new evening meal recipes each week. Between a monthly meat box delivery and weekly fruit and veg deliveries from the lovely Landgirls team – plus cupboard stocked with staples like grains, pulses, tinned foods and herbs and spices […]