Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Crowd Farming avocados
After a satisfactory experience buying Spanish oranges via Crowd Farming, I have now tried buying a 4 kg box of Haas avocados, also from Spain. The order was placed on Wed17th Feb for about £32. The fruit is picked to order and this must have happened in the following day or two. The box was collected by a shipper on 22nd and delivered here by Parcel Force on 25th. We haven't yet finished them but I am happy to say that these avocados are the best I have ever tasted with none of the problems I have sometimes had with fruit past its best from the supermarket. Under this system one buys direct from a farmer and there are several offering avocados. Mine came from this woman's farm: https://www.crowdfarming.com/en/farmer/la-atalaya/up/buy-avocados-h...
I think the price is similar to buying organic avos in a shop but, as long as the season lasts, I shall buy mine through Crowd Farming.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
It's a good thing those shops don't advertise on HarringayOnline. This is why we should be back in the office where we can't take these kinds of deliveries. Won't someone think of the shopkeepers?
-
Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
-
Hiya John, in so far as I have an office, it is at home and, during the lockdown, we have been very well served by Sainsbury's weekly deliveries which more or less replicate what we used to do ourselves by car. I imagine that we shall continue to use their service in future even after the lockdown is over. I can't see us buying many food products direct. It would really only work for things that can be bought in reasonable bulk, which keep long enough, where there is a significant quality advantage and where the value/weight ratio is suitable. It wouldn't work for baked beans etc but wine probably fits the bill and, for me, so do do navel oranges and avocados. I do sometimes wonder how long Sainsburys will continue to run their delivery services out of their existing supermarkets. At present, it is just a delivery service from the local shop to the home, rather than what Ocado tried and what Amazon is doing.
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
Thanks Dick. I co-bought some avocados and oranges with a neighbour. A whole box of each is too much for the two of us.
-
Permalink Reply by Classical Contrarian on
-
How do you manage to keep them fresh - we buy from pesky fish, but obviously not in bulk!
-
-
We keep the oranges and avocados in our dry unheated basement. 10kg of oranges would probably take too long to consume if we didn't share them. A month is about the limit in winter. The avocados are still OK three weeks on. The farmer suggests that putting them in the fridge would prolong their life but we haven't needed to do this.
As to getting fish direct, I had not heard of Pesky Fish and I don't follow how it works. We get most of our fresh fish from a guy with a van who calls weekly. Obviously he is not himself a fisherman but we can text him what we are after and, usually, he can get it - probably from Billingsgate.
-
Permalink Reply by Sarah on
-
I get fish from Soleshare - fish from sustainable stocks that you collect from a local shop. I collect from Harringay Local Store once a fortnight. It's a good chance to stock up on other necessities and refill my washing up liquid bottle.
-
-
There was a time when boomers viewed with disdain Gen X's ignorance of the externalities relating to the convenience economy.
Gen X then passed the buck by justifiably pointing out the woolly-headed slackness of the millennials.
But ultimately, here we are, with Covid having pushed all generations into slavishly adopting the false economy of convenience.
Now, will the new Dusty Knuckle deliver freshly toasted sourdough to my door, or am I going to be forced to collect and grill it myself?
-
-
I think the “convenience economy” is an interesting concept and might attract some attention if someone started a thread about it.
-
-
I am in the process of writing a book about this very thing so it might as well be me! FWIW I am using the example of crowdfarming as one of inconvenience -- buying 4kg boxes of avocadoes for which you have to wait several days for delivery is considerably less convenient than buying them one by one from Sainsbury's. Bulk buying also risks that you might have to interact with neighbours to share out 4kg that you can't get through yourself. I got given 12kg of mandarins by my dad and the marmalade that resulted was a community effort with several neighbours involved in lending equipment and advice (and receiving jam in return).
I would love to include in my book a discussion of the different (perhaps generational?) perspectives to convenience riffing off your post Will. If you'd like to be cited by name do let me know your full name, otherwise you will be "Will from HOL"!
-
-
Having seen words of yours in more august organs than HoL, I thought you might sympathise with small producers finding ways to avoid our market dominating supermarkets. In any event, getting them weekly from Sainsburys proved unsatisfactory.
-
-
Yes absolutely! I should emphasise that I think inconvenience is a good thing -- it is how to resist the market-dominating power of supermarkets etc.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
