Sheesh, what a week!
Here are some key things we’re temporarily doing differently while under lockdown to overcome restrictions and stresses on our supply chain, production systems, infrastructure and teams.
* NON-CUSTOMISABLE : As long and the situation in NZ remains critical, it is next to impossible to provide a high degree of flexibility. There is plenty of food, we just can’t consistently get specific things at specific times in specific quantities from our growers. Update 2/4: Supply is improving and we aim to add back some customisability for orders next week. Stay tuned.
* ONE-OFF ORDERS: Until further notice, you have to subscribe to a box. You can still go in and skip various deliveries and cancel anytime, but subscriptions give us the ability to forecast demand into the future and give our growers enough lead time to get you your food! Our growers are so grateful for this because it removes the uncertainly around how much to plant and how much to harvest.
Auckland & Waikato Only:
We’ve had to simplify our range of boxes , due to unpredictable supply of some things and to focus on getting food on doorsteps in these challenging times…
* VALUE BOXES: Firstly, these were 70-80% identical to our Organic Boxes, because good value is essential for all boxes. The key differences were:
– Value Apple and Pear of the Week were from Windmill Orchard in Coatesville (and minimally sprayed). Not organic. Graham of Windmill is over 70 and not available to delivery to us during Alert Level 4.
– Organic carrots are an incredible 5.6x more expensive in NZ due to limited supply! (Did you know largest organic carrot grower in NZ, Scott Lawson, just sold his farm to a conventional kiwifruit corporation for export? What a loss!). Anyway, we replaced organic carrots in value boxes with conventional ones for this reason.
– Value boxes had much more repetition because when there was oversupply of something at a great price, we helped our growers move it by going to town on it! (Organic Boxes rarely have the same thing 2 weeks in a row, normally).
– Value boxes almost never had fancy stuff like fresh herbs in them. The focus was on filling bellies with delicious organic local food.
* TINY BOXES: We need to reduce the number of boxes to make them easier to plan, order, receive, pack, etc. Everyone is eating all their meals at home now anyway, so this was a no-brainer.
We are temporarily putting all Value and Tiny Boxes on hold and asking people to please choose another one.
Please choose another box before Monday at 11:30am, if you haven’t already.
If you have questions, please look at our FAQ that is being updated everyday. Calling and emailing us slows us down and may prevent us from getting you a box. So please don’t unless it’s super critical.
We hope things will return to normal soon and in the meantime trust that you understand that these changes are to serve you the very best we can under these conditions.
Thank you so much the for the heaps of support and encouragement you have sent us over the past week. It keeps us going knowing we are making a difference!!
Humbly,
Your Ooooby Crew