Last Monday I ordered (they call it “contributed” to) our first Bountiful Basket. Bountiful Baskets is not a business, but is instead considered a co-op. You are pooling your money together to buy things at a great price. The conventional baskets are $15 and you can pay another $10 to upgrade to an all organic basket. There is also a $1.50 processing fee to go towards expenses since all your “contribution” goes towards the cost of the produce. If it is your first time ordering you will also have a $3 fee.
You can order up to 3 baskets (which would be a TON of produce). There are also some fun things you can add on like granola, tortillas, bread, a tropical pack, a Veggie lovers pack-Mexican theme. In Oregon I believe our ordering time starts at 12:00 p.m on Monday and closes Tuesday night. Things become unavailable as they sell out. My pick-up time was 11:45 on Saturday at Fresh and Local (used to be called Organic Fresh Fingers).
How did it go?
I think it was probably just a rare fluke, but when I got there some other people arriving to get their basket told me that there was an accident and traffic issues and that the pick-up was moved to 2:45. It sounded like they attempted to email people to let them know, but I never received one and know that some other people did not either. It was a little hard to fill all that time and go back out there a few hours later. I do understand that things happen and was glad that the pick-up was still happening. When I got back out there right at 2:45 I noticed that there was already a good sized line of people waiting to pick up their things. We all waited in line with our containers to transfer our food into and at 2:50 they said they were ready for us and started helping people in line. They asked our names and for the last 4 digits of our contribution number that was on our emails we received. It looked as if most people were getting a conventional basket. I was directed to pick up my organic basket at the table that you pick up your “extra stuff” at. My produce was already all boxed up and I did not really seem need to bring the tote to transfer it into like other people needed to. I asked if the traditional and organic baskets contained roughly the same types of items and they said that they were usually fairly different from each other. Next time I will try and snap a picture of the list of contents in the traditional basket. The produce that was labeled came from a few different states. It was not super local, but I know they work hard to source from small farms when getting things like bananas that are outside the U.S. I am not sure if the traditional basket is more local or not. By the time I got back in the car it was about 3:15.
Here is what we got (or at least what I think everything is): 🙂
-1 HUGE cauliflower
-1 good sized head of broccoli
-bag of brussel sprouts
-1 large fennel
-1 bunch of radishes
-head of garlic
-1 bunch of celery
-1 bag of red potatoes
-1 large head of greens
-5 bananas
-6 sm-med sized Fuji apples
-1 half pint of blueberries
It was definitely a good value and our family I will probably supplement with more fruit and order every other week since it is still a good chunk of our food budget and a little out of the way from where we live.
There is the low down. Let me know if you have any questions and I will see if this newbie can answer them.