That’s it. I’m planting seeds.
Because I’m this close to giving up on organic fruit and veg delivery in Toronto. In the summer months, we’re well-positioned between a couple of farmer’s markets. But in the winter months, we’re close only to a very low quality/high price organics store, and a “whassaorganic?” Metro.
So I have, over the years, tried a couple of fruit and veg “box” services.
Man. Alive.
They have produce. I have (sometimes) seen it. So why, why don’t they want me to have it?
I want to love the hippies. I do. Beneath this crusty exterior, I am one of them. But not when it comes to organizing a business. Because in that respect, holy. hell.
In our old apartment, and for years, we battled it out with Green Earth Organics. Who got something wrong pretty much every order. We’d regularly be charged for items which weren’t delivered. Or the fruit and veg in the bin arrived so wet they’d either be spoilt when we got them, or they’d spoil within the day. Additional items would not arrive more often than they did – and with no explanation. The empty bins were not picked up, and the deposits on the glass jars we’d send back weren’t credited to our account. Every week was an exercise in finding out what we’d been charged for that hadn’t arrived, and what had arrived that we’d substituted out.
Finally, I gave up and canceled our service.
This year, tired of fighting scurvy with frozen peas, I decided to try again. So we placed a couple of orders with Wanigan. Since they let you place one-off orders, I thought I’d go with a few trial runs before we signed on for regular delivery.
Good. Call.
The first few orders went off beautifully. Fresh, as-ordered produce magically arrived at our door. Everything we asked for came, and everything we were charged for was there.
And then.
I came home from work on a Wanigan day, saw the small bag of produce left on the counter, and thanked the Mister for getting started putting it away. He didn’t know what I was talking about. “Well, I put the eggs away, but what’s on the counter is all that came.”
Where “all that came” were the additional items: cashews, eggs, 2 baby bok choy, some snow peas and a yellow pepper.
Exactly whose brain is not switched on here?
I can understand overlooking an item or two. But there are so many different points in the chain where it should be bleeding obvious to the people involved that this order was incomplete. Right down to whoever it was who left this teeny bag of teaser produce on my porch.
Still, putting them head and shoulders above GEO, when I contacted Wanigan about the mistake, they were quick both to reply and credit my account for the missing main “box”.
Whew.
Feeling gunshy, I tried again this week.
And this week’s delivery just arrived. Additional items? Check. (That additional items guy is so on the ball). Vegetables? Check. Fruit?
Fruit?
Nuh-ope.
My “Fruit and Vegetable” box is all vegetable, no fruit. And yes, for those of you playing along at home, I was charged for the full box.
Which, of course, triggers a crazy pills moment. I find myself shaking out the kale to see if it’s hiding oranges. If the avocado is simply squirreled away beneath the romaine. Going back to the patio two and three times to see if the pears and apples made a roll for it.
But the patio is pear-free, and I resign myself to an “about that fruit I ordered…” email.
Again.