Some highlights from the warehouse this week: from left to right we’ve got beautifully leafy clems to brighten your shelves from Bio & Bio, fresh garlic from Zann looking and smelling fantastic, Cornish Gilliflower apples from Oakwood, and finally the wonderfully warty Grizzly Bear squash from Bedlam.

Hello Organic Northerners,

Another dull and drizzly one here in Manchester today after Storm Claudia swept through at the weekend. Yesterday felt like the first proper cold day in the warehouse, and with tomorrow not looking any warmer (cries in lows of -1 degrees), the layering of thermals officially begins.

Not too much news to share this week – Sean’s off galivanting again, this time up in St Monans, Fife for the Scottish Soil Association’s inaugural organic gathering on Thursday. Organics in Scotland is growing even faster than here in England, which is brilliant to see. Sean will be speaking on a panel titled Bringing Organic to the Table: Scaling Up in Catering and Foodservice, where they’ll be exploring how to get more organic food onto menus at scale – from schools and hospitals to restaurants and tourist attractions. There’s clearly a growing appetite for healthier, local and more sustainable choices. He’ll also be getting to meet up with some of our lovely Scottish growers, suppliers and customers too, but more on that next week.

A couple of quick updates before we get onto the veg news…

Netherend Butter is Back

“When’s Netherend butter coming back on the list?”  we hear you cry – good news! After a couple of weeks’ absence, it’s back and we’ve got plenty of their v delish, salted, traditionally churned, grass-fed Gloucestershire butter ready and waiting for you.

Cal Vall Pantry

A massive thank you to everyone who ordered pantry items from Cal Vall last week. The response has been fantastic and you all seem to be absolutely loving their range. We’ve passed your feedback on and they’re buzzing about it too! If you haven’t given their stuff a go yet, we’d definitely recommend it – and if you have, we’d love to hear your favourites so far.

Christmas Wreaths & Schedule

We’ve got one eager beaver amongst us here at Organic North who’s had her tree up and been belting out Christmas tunes since very early November, dare we say end of October and we love her for it (shout out to our smiley little Holl), but for those easing more gently into the festive spirit, the first of Trinity’s Christmas wreaths can be ordered for next week. I’ve popped some photos at the bottom so you can take a peek at what’s on the way.

And another quick reminder of our Christmas schedule:

• Last warehouse day: 22nd December

• Final deliveries & pallets: up to 23rd December

• Week before Christmas: extra warehouse day on the Friday to help spread the load

• Closed: 23rd December – 5th January

• New Year Pricelist: released Monday 29th December, with orders due back by 30th December for delivery in the first week of January

Now onto the fruit and veg updates:

• Starting in the UK, Royal Oak has some washed parsnips, Chapel has some twinner spuds and Mahollam adds some dirty carrots to the list.

• Elsewhere, Pollybell adds a full range to the list this week including some January king cabbages, cauliflowers, cavolo Nero, washed celeriac, PSB, butternut squash and spaghetti squash, while New Farm adds some washed swede and Strawberry Fields adds large red beets.

• Staying in the UK, Flourish adds celeriac to their offering, Trinity has added some rainbow chard, Rosa daikon radish, mixed salad leaves and of course their Christmas wreaths and Dart Valley have a limited amount of yellow oyster mushrooms for us to go at.

• On the UK fruit front, Carey have added some topaz apples and Comice pears and Mole End have added blaze apples and stardance apples.

• From Spain, Biovergel adds some courgettes, Camposeven adds pointed cabbages and clementines and Ecosuradds some green peppers.

• From Portugal, Vasco has added some dill, both loose and bagged.

• From Holland, Zann adds some cucumbers, horseradish, smerelda apples, comune clems and loose cranberries.

• From Dynamis our top picks this week are purple artichokes, sugarloaf chicory, fresh ginger root, mini Pak Choi, watercress, reinette des coteaux apples and marigold chestnuts.

• And lastly to line your pantry’s, we’ve got some more Ekolo juice available again including orange, pineapple and red grape, as well as loose-leaf English breakfast tea from Nemi and a variety of honeys from Morgiel including Buckwheat, Forest and Goldenrod.

Speak to you all again soon,

Ella, Cathryn, Mads, Alphin and the ON team x

Time to spruce up for Christmas!

The first of Trinity’s handmade Christmas wreaths will be available next week, each one crafted with a mix of greenery, holly, pinecones and of course sprinkled with festive cheer.

Trinity usually treats us to a few different creations each year, so the wreaths you receive may vary slightly from the photos above but each as lovely as the next.

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