People often ask us, “Is Boston Organics a CSA?”

CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) are awesome, but we are not a CSA (at least not in the traditional sense). An important benefit of subscribing to a CSA is that it helps to support local agriculture by working directly with a farm. As a Boston Organics customer you may not have a one on one connection with a single local farm – but you are helping to support and sustain a network of local farms, local suppliers, and local businesses!

I wanted to share my thoughts about some of the other differences when comparing a Boston Organics membership to that of a CSA experience…

One vs. Many Farms
In the strictest sense, a CSA is one farm that is directly selling its produce to its members; nobody is coming in between the grower and the consumer.

On the other hand, Boston Organics works with numerous farms including many in Massachusetts and the North East. We act as an aggregator to deliver a diverse and fresh mix of produce directly to the customer. We offer many different box sizes and mixes of fruit and vegetables to meet your specific needs.

Since we are not limited to sourcing from just one farm, Boston Organics is able to offer a broad selection of produce. We operate year round and supplement our boxes with items from further afield to offer enough diversity to meet your needs. We also offer a wide variety of certified organic fruit, such as fair-trade bananas, that are virtually impossible to produce in New England due to the difficult growing conditions. For the true diehards who only want to eat organic produce sourced as close to Boston as possible, we offer the Dogma Box.

Connection
Nothing beats going directly to the source. In fact many CSAs allow members to work at the farm and pick their own produce. At the same time, there is a big need for people and organizations like Boston Organics to help connect growers and consumers via the wholesale channel. Red Tomato founder, Michael Rozyne, explains in his blog that only 5% of the food is sold directly from the producer to the end-user. This highlights both the opportunity for more direct marketing, but it also indicates that there will probably always be a need for intermediaries. As an intermediary, we try our best to communicate what is going on out in the fields with our customers via our weekly newsletters and website.

Risk/Payment/Commitment
Most CSAs require payment up front for the entire season, or at least a portion of it. Paying in advance allows farms to have access to cash while avoiding costly loans to pay for seeds, labor, and other necessary expenditures at the beginning of the season – long before any revenues are generated.

By paying in advance, the CSA member is taking on some risk. If there is crop failure for whatever reason, the contents of the members’ shares will be reduced. From most accounts though, the opposite seems to be the case; there is usually too much food! With crazy New England weather, there are usually some set-backs, but a good CSA always seems to find a way to balance things out by the end of the season.

As a Boston Organics customer, we guarantee that you will get a consistent value. In an effort to minimize the risk to our growers, we work closely with them over the winter and spring. During the pre-season we provide informal commitments and estimates to help with their planning. In some cases we have pre-paid for crops months in advance. It is a win-win situation as it not only provides the grower with a reliable source of revenue, it also provides Boston Organics with a reliable source of local produce!

As a Boston Organics customer you pay as you go – you do not need to pre-pay or commit for any period of time. There is no initiation/membership/application fee. If you go on vacation or need to skip a delivery, just let us know 48 hours ahead of time and you won’t be charged. If you are not satisfied with the service, you can discontinue it!

From all of us at Boston Organics including our network of growers and suppliers, we thank you for your support.

2009 has been a great year for local food. At Boston Organics, we were able to more than double our direct purchasing of Massachusetts’ and regionally grown organic produce. We were able to do this primarily through pro-actively working with select farms. Because of your support we were able to accurately place and in some cases pre-pay for many of this past season’s crops as early as last winter. Many growers have taken notice and recognize Boston Organics to be a meaningful and reliable business partner. We expect to offer even more local and regional fruits and veggies in 2010. Ultimately, it is your underlying support that makes this all possible. We sincerely thank you for helping make 2009 a successful year. We look forward to serving you in 2010!

Michael Pollan’s most recent book In Defense of Food and article in the New York Times hit on a key but underlying theme about what Boston Organics is partially about; encouraging and supporting a lifestyle of eating and preparing simple ingredients. While living in San Francisco from 1995-2002, I underwent a lifestyle transformation. Part of that transformation included eating more healthy foods thanks to a home delivery service called Planet Organics. I had always considered myself a healthy person that exercised regularly and ate a balanced diet.

Receiving a mystery box of produce every week made me aware of how little I cooked and how little I knew about fruit and vegetables. It was sink or swim; would I be able to get through the box in time before the produce went bad or the next week’s delivery arrived? I stuck with it and without consciously realizing it I started to spend a little more time in the kitchen as well as feel better and more positive. As I started cooking more with basic ingredients, I found myself reading packaged food labels more and eating less processed foods. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat processed foods. I try to eat ones that have ingredients I recognize.

It’s funny, a few years ago while making a delivery, one customer commented that with Boston Organics, “you really have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty”. I had not really thought of the service in that way before, but it’s kind of true. For the most part, you have to be actively engaged to utilize this service.  We’ll pick the order, determine most of the contents, and deliver it to you; but after that, it’s up to you to decide how you will eat it. Some level of preparation is required.

Although time is a huge factor in why we cook less, there are other less obvious reasons that Pollan describes. One thing that I have realized over and over is that it usually takes about the same amount of time to cook a meal as it does to order and receive take out. With three children, and a small business (my other child), I’ve been able to cook dinner almost every night for my family. It’s often as simple as adding sautéed vegetables to pasta, burritos or rice, or chopped tomatoes, lettuce and avocado to tacos. We’ll order take out occasionally, but more to give me a mental break; however deciding what to have for take-out can be draining too.

If you are new to Boston Organics, you may find yourself being challenged to get through all the food. I encourage you to stick with it. Obviously we will benefit from your continued business, but ultimately you may find it rewarding in ways you had not expected.

– Jeff (owner and founder of Boston Organics)

We are really excited about the local, organic strawberries. At a recent meeting I attended, I brought over one package each of the local and California strawberries.

Here are few noted differences:

Price: The local strawberries are more expensive. This is a complicated issue and I don’t really know all the real reasons why we need to pay more for the local. I think it is a mix of contributing factors. The strawberries from California are grown on a much larger scale with a greater level of automation (less labor), and are being transported using cheap fossil fuel.

Maybe the biggest factor is supply. There is a limited amount of local organic strawberries grown in New England. In New England, it is very risky and challenging to grow strawberries following organic certified practices. Strawberries are very susceptible to all sorts of problems from insects and moisture. If you’ve been to a farmer’s market recently, you’ll notice that most farmers have no problem selling their strawberries whether they are organic or not. Many farmers understandably have little incentive to risk jeopardizing their strawberries with the limited certified organic options available for protecting them.

Texture: There is a noticeable difference in texture. The variety from California is “meatier” than the local I don’t think there is anything wrong with the texture of the California strawberry, it is just different. They are clearly grown to be transported and withstand the vibrations and shaking that accompany a cross-country trip.

Flavor: The California strawberries this week are very sweet, sweet like sugar. The local variety we are handing out have a different, more complex taste; maybe not as sweet, but are very flavorful with a slight tartness. One can argue that the local strawberries taste more like strawberries. In the group I was with, most preferred the flavor of the local ones.

Given the level of interest of the local, organic strawberries, I am confident, we will have more available next year. I plan to actively engage our network of growers and see if I can “secure” some strawberries ahead of time.

We just learned that Rick Pedersen of Pedersen Farm lost his entire crop of broccoli for the season. This is the same farm that provided that awesome asparagus the past 5-6 weeks. There were two main contributing factors. Early in the season there were heavy rains that damaged many of the seedlings. This was followed by exceptionally hot and dry weather which attracted a blight of flea beetles; unfortunately there are few effective organic controls. Had he been farming conventionally, Rick would have had more options to save the crop. One can imagine the non organic options, although effective are probably more toxic.

This is a pretty bad blow to Pedersen Farm. We had planned to hand out his broccoli as long as it was available. We are certain he had other customers lined up too.

Our commitment to certified organic standards and agriculture. This is one reason why we are so committed to supporting organic growers. As this illustrates, organic growers are really exposed to greater risk than conventional/non-certified growers. We feel it is very important to support them whenever it is possible and reward them for their commitment to sustainable growing practices

We plan to hand out Pedersen’s edamame beans this season. There has been a little bit of a glitch as the beans look like they will be available later than anticipated. We have made arrangements with other growers for vegetables for that time period. We will figure out a way to get those beans in the boxes!

Starting next week, December 23rd Boston Organics will be offering the Dogma Box. This box will include produce sourced as close to Boston as possible. This box is intended for customers that believe it is of utmost importance to purchase organic produce that is grown as close to home as possible.

The box will consist of approximately 8-14 items. We’ll source produce close to home and move further out until we can provide at least 8 unique items. NO SUBSTITUTIONS or NO LISTS will be allowed in this box. In the winter you may only get a box full of root vegetables. As the harvest season has come to end, many of the items in the boxes will be coming from storage.

For the early winter we will have access to root crops and some winter squash from New England. We will also have access to a few items grown indoors like sprouts and hot-house tomatoes. As we head deeper into winter and spring we will start sourcing items along the East coast as far south as Florida if necessary.

Ultimately, we would like to offer only Mass grown vegetables year round in the Dogma box. Unfortunately at this time, we do not have access to enough local produce to make this happen. Read here to learn more about the challenges and what we are doing to increase the supply.

As this is a new offering and not set in stone we would love your feedback. Is this Dogma box not hardcore enough for you? How would you like to see it improved? Please send us your feedback.

I am really excited about the Dogma box.

I wish I could take credit for the name and the concept, but I learned that another “box” company in Denmark has been offering one for years…

I think the Dogma box will help serve as a reality check for the current state of the local food chain. Hopefully, in a short time we can say, “Do you remember the first Boston Organics’ Dogma Box? It was so lame, it only had beets and potatoes. Look at it now, even in the winter it is full of local vegetables from green houses heated with solar panels and bio-fuel.” For now we may have to settle for beets and potatoes if we’re lucky (see my first blog post explaining the challenges we currently encounter).

If we succeed and can offer a great Dogma Box, it will mean that a larger portion of our dollars are being spent in the local economy and that we are succeeding in re-building the local food supply chain.

I sincerely appreciate and thank any customer that chooses to support this.

-Jeff

I am new to blogging and have been having a hard time figuring where to begin. So here I go.

One question we get often is the following…

Why can’t we get all those cool vegetables we see at the farmer’s markets or even local root crops through out the winter?

We’re just as frustrated as you that we don’t have access to an abundant variety of local organic vegetables as well as winter friendly roots like beets, potatoes, parsnips, etc year round. We know you want them, we want to get them for you, and we feel we should be able to get them for you. The problem is that there is only a very limited supply available right now. As small of a company we are, our demand for local organic produce exceeds what our network of growers can provide us.

The current poor state of the local food chain is a result of the modern food economy we have created. Cheap food produced on large-scale farms from far away that can be transported inexpensively destroyed a once flourishing local food economy. The physical logistics connecting growers to their markets have to be rebuilt and reinvented. Knowledge of and infrastructure for root storage has to be re-learned and re-built. Markets for local carrots coming out of storage competing against fresher/nicer looking/cheaper carrots need to be created.

Both eating organically and locally resonate with me on a very basic, emotional level that I call “truths.” It only makes sense that you only want to eat clean food made without the use of synthetic chemicals. For the simple sake of peace of mind, it only makes sense that you want to have access to food grown nearby and not rely on food grown on the other side of the continent. There are so many more reasons why it is important that we support organic and local food production (the local economy, the environment, etc.).

These are some of the motivations why I started Boston Organics, and why I am so excited that I believe we have arrived at a time where we are on the cusp of seeing some significant, positive change about to happen.

Our growers are beginning to see the demand and we are taking steps to increase the supply. We are all very excited about the possibilities and will try our best to get there as quickly as possible. However there are still many challenges and it will take some time.

Steps Boston Organics is taking to get local organic vegetables available to you year round:

1. Pre-Orders to the Growers

First of all, we are only able to do this because of your support. Because you are supporting our model of the “mystery box” and trust us to choose what goes in your box, we are able to offer growers a level of unprecedented commitment that allows them to increase their production significantly.

Because you are willing to sacrifice some control as to what goes in your order, we are able to commit in the winter for the next season’s product. THIS IS EXTREMELY POWERFUL and has been one of the most satisfying and rewarding parts of the business.

2. Build a root cellar?

We are in the early, early, early, dream stage of talking with a few growers about building a root cellar. Building a cellar and growing the vegetables to stock it are only parts of the solution. The growers need to learn about the best practices to ensure that the potatoes and other roots will last into the late spring. Other questions include, will refrigeration/electricity be needed to store the crops? If so how will that impact the economics?

It is an exciting time to be involved in the food business. There is some great momentum happening to make some real positive change to create a sustainable food system. Through your support, I believe Boston Organics can be part of the solution.

Thanks for your support and business.

-Jeff Barry (owner/founder of Boston Organics)