Getting your five-a-day during lockdown can be tricky. Supermarkets are stressful, and local greengrocers can generally only let two or three people in at a time. And it might be a while before we can peruse produce in a more leisurely way. Lucky for us, you can get fresh fruit & veg delivered (contact-free) straight to your door. Of course, seasonal fruit and veg box delivery companies existed pre-Covid-19. But demandq understandably increased during the lockdown. Here’s our roundup of London fruit & veg companies currently delivering.
New Covent Garden Market
Normally a wholesale supplier for businesses, New Covent Garden Market is currently offering London Fruit and Veg delivery to homes. Suppliers include All Greens, meal kits from Balance Box, Ripe, and Nature’s choice. Stock levels can change quickly, so you might need to try a few suppliers for this one.
What’s on offer: Small boxes of essentials (eggs, bread, milk, butter, and juice), seasonal fruit and veg, meal kits, and wine.
Price of boxes: Smaller boxes cost around £20.00–£25.00. Larger boxes are priced at around £45.00. Delivery ranges from free to £5.00 depending on the supplier.
Delivery areas: London and the home counties (see the full list of suppliers for details)
Eurofrutta
Eurofrutta is a family-run business that normally supplies fruit and vegetables to London’s restaurants and cafés. But it’s currently offering London fruit & veg in two box sizes, plus some add-ons and essentials (bread, butter, milk, eggs etc). They’re also stocking pasta and sauces, olive oil and fancy coffee if you want to perfect flat whites at home.
Price of boxes: Fruit and veg boxes come in small (£25.00) or large (£50.00) which looks pretty massive. Both are packed full of your seasonal staples like potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, pepper, carrots, online, bananas, satsumas, mixed apples, and pears.
The chef’s box is available for £43.00 and includes things like kale, purple carrots. green beans, banana shallots, fennel, and radicchio. You can check stock-status, and substitutions may be made due to demand. There’s currently a £40.00 minimum spend
Delivery info: Eurofrutta is currently making widespread London fruit & veg deliveries, but check postcodes covered for the most up to date info. Deliveries placed before 10pm are usually delivered within 1-3 working days (Mon-Sat).
Nature’s Choice
Another greengrocer that usually supplies restaurants and bars, Nature’s Choice has plenty of variety with seasonal fruit and veg boxes starting at £25.00, and some fruit & veg plus essentials options too.
Price of boxes: The small fruit and veg box offers a decent mix of staples like carrots, onions, potatoes, garlic, apples and pears. You’ll also see things like avocado, asparagus, and mixed herbs, and each box looks decent enough for 1-3 people. A medium box costs £38.00. There are also options for combined fruits and veg with essentials from £46.00. You can also order bunches of white roses from New Covent Garden Market for £15.00.
Delivery info: Across London, free next day delivery for orders placed by 6:30pm, delivered between 6am-6pm, Monday-Saturday.
Riverford Organic Farmers
Due to a current high demand, Riverford Organic Farmers isn’t taking on new customers—but there is a waiting list. It’s based in Devon but delivers across the UK.
When you can sign up, the variety is good and you select from small to large boxes of vegetables, fruit, fruit and veg, salad boxed and a meat box. Check back weekly for an update on what’s available on any given week as it’s seasonal produce, and some items even change daily based on what’s best at the time. Expect staples like carrots, onions and potatoes as well as cauliflower, Swiss chart, chestnut mushrooms, melon and curly Kale.
Price of Boxes: The smallest item available is an organic food bag at £8.45, but minimum spend is £15.00. Boxes start from £12.65 for the small seasonal organic veg box. But there are lots of categories in small, medium and large sizes including the ‘quick organic’ veg box for around £15.00–£23.55.
Sizes vary between London fruit & veg suppliers, and Riverford’s prices reflect that. Meat is naturally more expensive, with boxes starting at £18.90 for a 500g joint, rump steaks, and pork mince.
Delivery info: Delivery is free, and orders should arrive the following working day.
Oddbox
We can neither confirm nor deny whether Oddbox’s claim to be “London’s favourite veg box” is true. but it’s certainly popular enough that nabbing one of its London fruit & veg boxes is something of an exclusive club now. Deliveries are currently on a first come, first served basis, so new orders are limited each week. But you can hit the notification list to get involved when slots are open again. Oddbox aims to curb waste by rescuing surplus seasonal fruit & veg from farmers across the UK, and redistributing it to London homes.
Price of boxes: Boxes come in small, medium or large. For fruit & veg, small is recommended for 1-2 people. It contains 7 types of veg, and 3 types of fruit and costs £11.49. medium boxes are recommended for a groups of 3 and costs £14.99. And the large should be enough for a family or group of 4-5 at £18.99. Veg only boxes come in the same 3 sizes and range from £9.45–£13.99. You can also get a fruit booster box, with 5 types of fruit surplus. Each week, you’ll get an email with the contents of your box. So you can exclude up to three items—but the nature of rescue produce means you can’t fully customise it.
Delivery info: Oddbox currently delivers London fruit & veg in postcodes within Zones 1 and 2. But if you’re outside of that area, drop them a line at hello@oddbox.co.uk and they might be able to help. Farm-fresh produce is delivered overnight to minimise emissions, and delivery is free. Up to 10% of its produce is donated to London food poverty charities too.
Farmdrop
Like Oddbox, Farmdrop also works with UK farmers, but it’s about ethically-sourced produce rather than saving surplus. It operates to give farmers a fairer deal than they get from the supermarkets. So its groceries are more on the premium end of things, price-wise. A bag of apples or pears is around £4.00. It operates as an ethical supermarket—so you pick and choose your items, rather than select a box.
Farmdrop sells fruit and veg, meat, dairy and eggs, baked goods, booze, and soft drinks. The prepared meals are pretty good value at £7.00–£9.00 for large mains like Black Bean Chilli and Venison and Juniper Stew.
Delivery info: Farmdrop currently focuses on central London fruit & veg deliveries. But you can use the postcode checker to check if your area is covered. Download the app to select your produce and place your order. Postage is free over £60.00, and is available same day in 3-hour slots. For orders under £60.00 there’s a £4.00 delivery charge.
Abel & Cole
Abel & Cole is one of the bigger suppliers of organic London fruit & veg, as well as meat and fish, dairy and bakery products. Unfortunately, that means that due to Covid-19 related demand, it’s not currently taking new customers.
However, you can sign up to the mailing list for updates as and when things change. The good news is, it’s launched Food on the Table—taking non-organic food that was destined for restaurants to homes insteads.
Price of boxes: Create an account for the new Food on the Table weekly subscription service (you can cancel any time) to choose your box. There’s the fruit & veg box (£18.00 for 7 portions of veg, and 3 portions of fruit). Then there’s the fruit box (£16.00 for a mix of 6 types of fruit). You can also pick up a pantry box, with staples like pasta, bread, tinned soup etc).
Delivery info: UK-wide. But use the postcode checker for availability and delivery dates. Able & Cole deliver on a particular day depending on where you live. There’s a pretty reasonable flat charge of £1.50.
Farmaround
Farmaround is London’s first organic box scheme, and was set up in 1994. The website is a little old-school but there’s a decent selection of organic fruit and veg, plus eggs.Unfortunately, it’s not taking on new customers now due to lockdown demand, but check the website for updates.
Price of boxes: fruit and veg are batched separately. Veg sizes come in standard (for 2-4 people £14.25), luxury (£18.15 for 2-4 people), and luxury (£21.45). Fruit also comes in three sizes, and ranges from £10.45 to £16.90.
Delivery info: Farmaround deliveries to London, Brighton, and elsewhere in South East of England, but enter your postcode to check first. There is a flat rate of £2.80 on all deliveries.
Greens of Highgate
If you’re based in north London, and want to support a local business, Greens of Highgate is currently offering fruit and veg box (plus boxes of x6 eggs) deliveries for free in certain postcodes in N6 and the surrounding postcodes. They range from £15.00—£80.00, but pack a generous amount of produce in, so even the extra small is worth it for one or two people.
Price of Boxes: You can select just fruit, just veg or a mix of both in the drop downs. An extra small is £15.00, a small is £25.00. Expect seasonal staples like carrots, potatoes, greens, plus bananas, apples and citrus fruit. Medium boxes cost £40.00, then it’s £60.00 for a large or £80.00 for an extra large. As it’s a small, local grocery shop, you pretty much get what you’re given. So no substitutions etc, but the variety is decent.
Delivery info: Free to N6, N10, N8, N2 and other local postcodes. Greens do deliver elsewhere in north London, but charge £5.00 or £10.00 depending on the postcode. Check the delivery page for details. Deliveries should arrive within 3 working days.
Organiclea
If you’re based in east London, you can order fruit and veg bags from Organiclea, a workers’ cooperative growing food in Lea Valley. It offers a click and collect rather than a delivery service. Select what you want and choose from one of the pick up points across Waltham Forest (including Walthamstow, and Wanstead). Pickups are usually on Wednesday afternoons.
You can take a peek at what’s on offer each week on the website. As well as onions, potatoes, and carrots, Organiclea offers things like pak choi, swede, and Jerusalem artichokes.
Price of bags: Prices start from £6.46 per week for a small fruit bag, or £7.62 for a small veg bag. Medium and large options are available too. A large bag of veg is £16.85 per week, and standard sized fruit bag is £10.15.
