Awen Organics 🤩

We’re delighted to welcome Awen Organics back to the list. We started working with these guys at the end of last season and were really impressed with the quality of their produce so its great to welcome them back for a full season this time around.

They’re starting small and will only be available for Monday customers next week but will have plenty more to go at once we get further into the season, pictured is  peppermint kale, rainbow kale, baby bunched fennel & tokyo turnips. All looking fabulous! 🌿

Good afternoon, organic comrades,

It’s that lovely time of year when we start to see more of our market-gardener pals return to the list and as a result, our weekly offering fills out with more and more new season veg.

One of those is Awen Organics pictured above who we’re very pleased to see returning after their first year growing some veg for us last year. As a reminder, Awen is a 25 acre growing enterprise who have been growing in West Wales since 2017. We love nothing more than working with small-scale growers and providing them with another route to market so we’re chuffed to see them return.

That’s also why I’m doubly pleased to let you know that as of next week, we’ll be adding a brand new local market gardener to the list from over near St Helen’s, namely young Alice Griggs of AG Harvest. Alice first reached out to us last summer with her mum, Jenny about the prospect of taking on some land to grow for us. A few chats later to highlight some gaps in our list and plan some plantings, Alice thinks that she will be able to offer us some veg for the first time next week. I’m sure you’re gonna love Alice as though she’s really young, she already has years of growing experience and is committed to only providing us with top quality veg. More about Alice next week though.

In less positive news (when is veg /growing wholesaling ever straightforward!), we’re hitting some dead ends when it comes to UK berry supply. The blueberry brothers at Trehane have sold up and the new company is supplying a national scale veg box scheme provider exclusively. That disappointment was compounded when we learned that our longest-serving berry supplier, Carey Organics in Herefordshire has made the decision to stop growing berries too.

Carey had been growing soft fruits for over two decades but they’ve decided to concentrate of ‘top fruit’ and plant new vines where their aging soft fruit bushes once flourished. They told us that the “soft fruit business [for us] has become increasingly difficult to justify especially as the availability and cost of labour makes long term profitability a challenge.” Brexit was the first nail in the coffin to the berries that these guys supply- I remember us losing their strawberries immediately after the vote for lack of available pickers of them.

To try and fill this huuuuge gap, we’re exploring some raspberry/blueberry availability from a massive producer called Haygrove, we have lined up a new large scale grower for next year and Alice, our new market gardener will have a few local raspberries for us to squabble over in the interim too. If you know of any organic berry growers, please do point them our way.

Some other grower updates whilst I’m on a role:

– Lynher Growers should return in the next couple of weeks with peas and various courgettes

– Pollybell and New Farm are back in full swing with plenty of caulis and broccoli to go at.

– Haciendas return with some well-priced stone fruit.

– We’ve also restocked with Cal Valls and Ekolo too from Spain.

Veg updates:

• Newfields have some turnips in bunches and a limited availability of Kale.
• Foskett’s have Rainbow and Purple bunched Carrots.
• Strawberry Fields have some Bunched Onion Yellow, Chioggia Beetroot and some flat Parsley.
• Caerfai are back on with some New Season Orla potatoes.
• Flourish have added a couple varieties of Kale, some Mixed Salads and Herbs and a few more Garnish punnets.
• Moss Valley have got some Speckled Green Batavia Lettuce and Rainbow Chard.
• Moving over to Spain, we have Haciendas returning with Flat and normal Nectarines. They have same with peaches and also some Black Plums.
• Thaymin have added Black Splendour Plums and Japanese Yellow Plums.
• Bioalgarrobo are back with Sweet Potatoes and butternut Squash.
• Cal Valls have the first of their New Season Red Onion.
• Biovergel have some Lamb Hass Avocadoes for us and Piel De Sapo and Yellow Melons.
• In holland, Zann have Jalepenos, Turnips and Canteloupe Melons.
• Over to France, Bio & Bio have added Blood and White Peaches, Black Breba Figs, Green Dauphine Figs and Black Plums.
• Finally, this weeks Dynamis picks are: Blue heirloom tomatoes, Plum Black Splendour and Verbena.

Sean, Cathryn, Mads, Alph and the ON Team x

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