As you know I've been doing a few veg boxes lately and using my friends as guinea pigs.
Here's one I made up at the start of the week.
It contains:-
One bunch of Di choggai beets (and a white beet "Albino" to try)
Two little gem lettuces
The last red kohlrabi
Red cabbage red acre
300g of French beans (filet type, minidor yellow bean)
Yellow courgettes
A small bunch of pruvian black mint
Large bunch of red Russian kale
Two little gem lettuces
The last red kohlrabi
Red cabbage red acre
300g of French beans (filet type, minidor yellow bean)
Yellow courgettes
A small bunch of pruvian black mint
Large bunch of red Russian kale
What do you think?
Do you like the selection?
What would you pay?
What a lovely selection of traditional and unusual vegetables. I've cheated and Googled veg boxes and they do vary. A medium box that contains 9-10 things is on average £16.50. But if you price the items individually it's more like £20. One courgette sets you back 70p and so on.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I need top up how many things I produce. Alliums haven't been good this year and everyone uses them every week so need to get better!
DeleteThis is a top quality box and I think a contribution of around 10 - 15 pounds would be about right ! Good luck with trying out your scheme !
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's only in the planning stag at the moment
Deletei love your veg box and think that the veg look beautiful! if you were in canada, i and most other people who want organic beautiful food, would gladly pay $20 for that box. although that is only 11.90 British pounds but our exchange rates are sooo different. $20 here in canada would seem fair. but as frugal says, if you price the items individually it would be 20 British pounds. i think about 16.50 British pounds sounds fair.
ReplyDeletesending love. and i really think you should start trying to sell your surplus and build up a loyal following! your friend,
kymber
Thanks Kymber, It's making sure I have something to sell each week that's worrying me!
DeleteSorry I'm no use at all on prices ... but it all looks delicious and really top quality :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Sue, I'm not great on the pricing!
DeleteI've been thinking about this since yesterday and debated to sent you a long-winded e-mail but will try to sum up my thoughts here while the little guy is napping. The short answer - around here $15 to $20.
ReplyDeleteThe long answer has more to do with what perceived value on the customer's part. I am basing this off of selling at market, being a former CSA customer, talking to people that have bought boxes and also took a course where I spent the semester writing a business plan for selling veg through this type of set up.
Thoughts:
I live in an economically depressed area and many people seem to want to see these types of boxes as a bargain - aka cheaper than the store. Sad but true. I would have to sell at a lesser price here than if we lived an hour south of our town.
When I was a subscriber I noticed other people sometimes expected more from their money in cases where I thought the box we got was great. Like: is the lettuce enough to make a big salad for a meal? Or "just a little lettuce" That kind of thing? What does your buyer expect?
Many people don't have the background to make up a dish with the ingredients on hand. If they know how to cook, they will see a small handful of something or that one kohlrabi as a fun ingredient but if they don't perhaps it gets shoved to the back of the fridge, forgotten about and considered wasted money. The "value" of the box has just decreased in their mind.
Many people have a hard time creating a dish themselves When I sold at market I printed some recipe cards to go with the more unusual stuff, perhaps something like that included would be a bonus. Or suggestions on how to combine some of those things into a meal. Check out the book "Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables" for a man who made a great cook book to support the boxes he sold his customers.
This may be a case of me living in this particular rural area of the US, so take it with a grain of salt.
Re-reading this I really hope I didn't come across as an a$$. It's a lovely beautiful box I would have been thrilled to get. Just wanted to discuss the roadblocks as well.
DeleteI think it's good to explore the negatives as well as the positives. We are somewhat a captive audience, I don't think any of us wouldn't be happy with that veg box, but the general populace isn't us and so neccessarily wouldn't view it in the same way.
DeleteCottontailFarm, Great reply thanks and I'll be looking up that cookbook as well. I think I'll do recipe cards if there's something uusual or some herbs that are in the box (pesto etc) to try to make sure things don't get wasted.
Deleteit's funny people I've spoke to have said different things, one said "lots of leafy greens" and another said "not too much kale" so no way of pleasing everyone.
Nick - i'm certainly preaching to the choir here I know! But then again I'm not really going for the general populace as I think I'll probably only start with six family, and they'll probably be ones that are buying organic already and have an interestin what they eat (hopefully). It'll be a tricky balanacing act of having enough stuff each week and making sure it's not so unusual that no one knows what to do with it. Then again I'm not going to be able to compete with the farmer with a field of carrots, but by having interesting varieties I should be able to offer something that he can't. It's all very hypothetical at the moment, i'm still not sure what I want to do. Small scale restaurant sales is another option, salads to local cafes, things like that might be good as well.