By now all of our delivery customers will hopefully have set eyes upon our lovely new boxes, featured in this week’s lovely photo, as always taken by Kristy – after buying boxes in an ad hoc fashion for two years, we thought we could probably afford to take the plunge and invest in a large stockpile, while also taking the opportunity to reiterate our core agenda on the outer faces of said boxes – we’re all about Tasmanian produce for Tasmanians! The boxes were designed, manufactured and printed locally by Orora (who also make packaging for quite a lot of larger agricultural businesses locally), and Mr and Mrs BB took advantage of the Easter school break to pick them up from the freight depot, something of a challenge as there were 2000 of them, spread across four extra large pallets! Not only is the produce Tasmanian, and the boxes, but even the newspapers lining them are mostly Tasmanian too (thanks to everyone who has donated their clean newspapers for this purpose!)
Speaking of Tasmania, we’re really looking forward to organising another road-trip in the upcoming school holidays to visit more of our northern producers, and also some of our southern ones, to extend the grower profiles section on our website. When we started our business there was only one other provider of fresh produce boxes in the state; since then quite a number of other businesses have joined the trend (even Coles are now doing seasonal produce boxes, believe it or not!), but when you buy a Backyard Bounty vegie box on a regular basis, you’re supporting an ever increasing list of local growers (at least 30 regulars and many more seasonals and casuals), whilst being secure in the knowledge that all produce in your box is sourced only from Tasmanian growers, something we’re very proud of indeed!
Last week a customer emailed me to ask why the avocados were too hard, and it reminded me that sometimes we need to repeat things we’ve said often in the past for customers who are new to our boxes. By the way, if you’re wondering the same thing, the Haas avocados that the Bidwells grow are picked while they’re still hard so they freight without bruising, but become ready as they darken, which can take around a week;
if you’re in a hurry for some guacamole, you can put them in a paper bag to concentrate the ethylene gas they produce, which speeds up ripening. The same also applies for tomatoes – if they’re a bit green, keep them at room temperature with things like avocados or apples; if they’re really ripe, put them in the fridge and they’ll stay like that ready to use for a few days.
Here’s what’s in this week’s box:
