Guy’s news: I just couldn’t eat it all myself

When I started packing veg boxes on a cow shed floor in 1993, my assumption was that our customers would be (or at least should be) just like me; same chaotic cooking style, same approach to life, with an equally messy kitchen and the same hungry family to feed. Such egocentric lack of appreciation of household diversity and contempt for the marketing process was a flaw from the start, but seemed to serve us remarkably well for many years.

When I started packing veg boxes on a cow shed floor in 1993, my assumption was that our customers would be (or at least should be) just like me; same chaotic cooking style, same approach to life, with an equally messy kitchen and the same hungry family to feed. Such egocentric lack of appreciation of household diversity and contempt for the marketing process was a flaw from the start, but seemed to serve us remarkably well for many years. When I finally learned how most people cook I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe how little veg they ate, so, as a committed veg nerd it became my mission to spread the word. As the legendary Welsh drug dealer ‘Mr Nice’ reputedly said in court, “I never meant to sell the stuff; I just couldn’t smoke it all myself ”.

25 years on my household has shrunk, as has (mercifully) my appetite and ego. I still think most of you should eat more veg, ideally stuff that we have grown, but I now fully see the virtue in listening to you and meeting you halfway. I hope we will always be unashamedly opinionated in our veg enthusiasm and try hard to nudge our customers towards veg-centric, seasonal eating, but how we do that needs to be better informed to achieve the greatest impact. As such we need your guidance on how many cauliflowers we should send you in a winter; how many aphids are acceptable per lettuce; whether we should offer flexibility in delivery days; and if it is fairer to charge for delivery and drop the minimum spend. Our plan is to recruit a panel of customers who are happy to participate in forums and polls on such topics. You can join in as much or as little as you like, so if you might be interested please contact the delightful Polly via research@riverford.co.uk.

Many people claim to eat seasonally but so few actually do it; we have twice before had a ‘UK-only’ box and twice dropped it when uptake failed to reach 1%. Last autumn we tried again and maybe we are getting better at it, as sales topped 3% this time, so we are much encouraged. As we enter the hungry gap we cannot muster eight UK items with any degree of rotation so we are suspending it for a few weeks; rest assured it will be back in June and we will be nudging all of you to try it.

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