This autumn, we want more people to have a positive impact with their food shop so we are challenging new customers to reignite their love for cooking and unearth the benefits for health, community, local wildlife, and the climate by adding a veg box to their shopping list for 4 weeks in a row.
Veg boxes aren’t the way most of us are used to planning and cooking our meals. Starting with a seemingly random selection of (sometimes odd looking!) veg can be a bit of a challenge at first. That’s why, for the first time ever and in celebration of Organic September, we’re offering a discount to new customers who commit to trying a series of home deliveries from us. We want newbies to give it a month and see how they get on. We find that once people have had four boxes, they tend to stick around and even fall back in love with food. The more people who we have shopping with us, the greater impact we can have together.
We are offering 10% off all your orders for a year to any new customers who order four boxes in four weeks! Simply enter this coupon code on your Current Order page to qualify: CARROTCLUB (t&cs can be found at the bottom of this page).
Read on for more detail, as well as all the information you need to redeem the new customer offer, as well as a farm treat for our wonderful, loyal customers too.
Better for... your health
Buying organic veg boxes is a brilliant way to support your health. They encourage us to cook from scratch and eat a variety of veg. The produce in the boxes are harvested to order and go straight into the boxes, rather than sitting around on shelves, waiting to be picked. That makes a huge difference to their nutrition as fruits and vegetables begin to lose nutrients as soon as they’re harvested. In fact, according to the University of Reading, some vegetables can lose up to half of some nutrients within a couple of days. Then there’s the fact that all of the produce we sell is organic. Researchers from Newcastle University have found that organic crops are much more nutritious than their non-organic counterparts.
With 4 boxes you could:
Enrich your diet with 26 different organic vegetables:
We looked at what went in our Large Gert British veg box in the 4 weeks from 8th July and found that included: Aubergine, beetroot, broad beans, carrot, cauliflower, chard, courgette, cucumber, fennel, french beans, green bell pepper, hispi cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, leek, seven different varieties of lettuce, potatoes, red onions and salad onions!
Recent scientific research suggests that eating a variety of plants is key to better overall health and wellbeing: greater resilience to withstand infections, better digestion and better brain function. The latest advice is to eat 30 different plants a week, including seeds, nuts, grains and spices, alongside fruit & veg. Getting a veg box is a great step towards getting out of recipe ruts and thinking creatively about getting more diversity in your diet.
Better for... your community
Research by the New Economics Foundation shows for every £10 spent with a veg box scheme like ours, a total of £25 goes back into the local area, compared with just £14 when the same amount is spent in a supermarket! We’re also a not-for-proft organisation and our land and crops are cared for by people in your community including volunteers; refugees and asylum seekers; people suffering with isolation and mental ill health; adults and children from visible ethnic minorities; and local school children. A recent survey amongst those people who have recently visited the farm found that 92% of people succeeded in positively impacting their physical or mental health by spending time on the land.
With 4 boxes you could:
Help more than 75 people benefit from growing the food in your box
We reviewed the crops that went into those same 4 Large Gert British veg boxes, which we had grown here at the Farm and looked at who was involved in growing them which included 83 different people! Taking the 92% who positively stated they had benefited physically or mentally when asked in our survey, that’s 76 people who we can confidently say benefited directly from the crops in just 4 boxes. Let alone the people working and volunteering at the other farms we source from.
Better for... local wildlife
On average, organic farms have 30% more wildlife! Regular sightings on our farm include skylarks, woodpeckers, lapwings, buzzards, kestrels, stoats, badgers and deer. Whilst many of the bigger species are elusive and hard to count, we do count butterflies and bees at the farm. In fact, bumblebee sightings have gone up by 155% since 2020 alone! With farmland making up 70% of land in the UK and 1 in 10 of Britain’s wildlife species facing extinction, this really does matter.
With 4 boxes you could:
Sustain 15 butterfly species which visit our farm
Reviewing butterfly counts at the farm from this growing season, we’ve seen a range of different species, each benefiting from different plants and habitats around the farm: Brimstone, comma, common blue, gatekeeper, large white, marbled white, meadow brown, orange tip, peacock, red admiral, ringlet, small skipper, small tortoiseshell, small white, and speckled wood.
Better for... the climate
This is a topic we’ve written about before and there’s so much we could say but, put simply by the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, a transition to sustainable and regenerative farming systems, like organic, in the UK could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by upwards of 70%!
With 4 boxes you could:
Support 7 climate- and wildlife-friendly, British farms
Looking back at those four Large Gert British veg boxes from 8th July onwards, we sourced from Langridge Organics, Strode Valley Organics, Lyncroft, as well as our own fields. In those weeks we also brought in some produce from Riverford, Organic Dan and Organic North - three wholesalers who work with a range of organic farms in the UK. Even if each of those wholesalers only sourced from one farm that would mean buying those boxes supported 7 British, organic farms.
Organic September offers:
New customers can get 10% off your orders for a whole year!
We are offering 10% off all your orders for a year to any new customers who order four boxes in four weeks! Please enter this coupon code on your Current Order page to qualify: CARROTCLUB
A new customer is anyone who registers an account with the farm after Friday 6th September 2024. You must enter the coupon code before 30th November and order four boxes in four consecutive weeks to be eligible. You will then automatically become a member of the ‘Carrot Club’ which gives a 10% discount on all orders from our online shop for 12 months. The 10% discount will be in place from your 5th order onwards. The usual price of membership to the Carrot Club is £35 and you will be invited to renew your membership towards the end of the promotional period.
All customers can get a free meal at our annual wassail event!
This year’s wassail will be held on 25th January 2025 and anyone who orders four boxes in consecutive weeks before 30th November will be eligible for a free meal for two people at our annual wassail event. There’s no need to do anything other than buy a ticket to the event, your name will be on a list and we’ll tick you off!
The Community Farm is a not-for-profit, organic farm that delivers nourishing food across the local area. We aim to grow community as much as we grow food. Every year we welcome more than 1,500 people onto the land for wellbeing courses, social events and volunteering sessions overlooking Chew Valley Lake, just south of Bristol.
