Online Ordering for 9th November – 13th November (Week 45)
There’s another new set of supplier vids just gone live on the website this week! Click the thumbnail above to see what Mic and Luke get up to down at Dart Valley 🍄🟫
We’ve been working with these guys for a few years now, and their mushrooms have been popular ever since they joined the list. Mic and his business partner Luke are a lovely pair with a real passion for all things fungi, specialising in both gourmet and medicinal varieties (with King Oyster being Mic’s personal fave to grow).
They’re also the only commercial organic substrate producer in the UK operating at quite this scale, making their own peat-free growing substrate from organic by-products, including wood sawdust, wheat bran and wheat straw. Pretty impressive 👏🏼
Sean caught up with them earlier in the year while he was down in Totnes and, naturally, gave them what we like to call the Sean treatment. Sounds like production went a little askew for a couple of days afterwards while Mic and Luke nursed some sore heads. Oops! 🥴🤭
We’ve got Lion’s Mane, King Oyster, Grey Oyster and Shiitake on the list this week, so take yer pick! 🍄🟫
Good afternoon friends,
I’ve some more positive political news to rattle on about this week : )
I was in a meeting with Defra yesterday as part of the work we’re doing helping them design the UK’s new Horticulture Sector Growth Plan and they were giving the clearest signals yet that we have their support. They said they’re well aware and impressed by the strides we’re making in the sector and I’m quietly confident that alongside our good pals in the UK Fruit & Vegetable Coalition | Food Foundation, we’re gonna achieve some groundbreaking new wins for our organic/agroecological sector- some as soon as January perhaps! More on that in due course but yous are all directly part of this progress so give yourselves a pat on the back : )
The next step for us as a group is a Defra-chaired meeting at the NFU’s headquarters in London in early Dec to see if we can find a bit of common ground with big ag…not a task for the faint-hearted! Keeping things political, I’m away to The House of Lords this evening for a parliamentary reception for the cross-party horticulture and gardening group. Never really been to owt like this before so i’m bricking it a bit but be interesting if nowt else, eh!
Lastly on the political front, it’s been reported today that we’re making inroads with ever-closer ties to Europe. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/nov/03/deal-finalised-remove-brexit-checks-food-animal-productspartick
The above won’t affect us as a company too much but it seems to me that unless the fascists get in, we’re heading towards some form of customs relationship with Europe in a few years. That would be significant news to all of us as since Brexit, the price of importing veg has been significantly more expensive. So let’s make sure that we keep Farage and his fascist pals out! Please Mind The Farage stickers (pack of 2)
Our Ell’s weekly veg updates:
- Starting in the UK, Royal Oak has both normal and romanesco cauliflowers, dirty parsnips, Turks turban squash and purple top turnips.
- Next up, we’ve some cauliflower on from New Farm again, as well as some broccoli, cavolo Nero and PSB from Pollybell.
- Bagthorpe has carrots and alouette spuds, Roddy’s some spinach and mixed salad leaves and Fosketts some Futsu Squash.
- Next up, Strawberry Fields has some 10kg chioggia beetroot, Awen also has some chioggia beetroot as well as some baby spring greens and Trinity some chillies and radishes.
- On the UK fruit front, Oakwood has some Ashmeads kernal apples, Pardoe some Topaz apples and Carey some pinova apples and Comice pears.
- We also have some cox orange pippin on from Mole End this week and 10kg chestnuts from Augernik.
- From Portugal, Vasco add some pointed cabbages.
- From Spain, Biovergel has some fino lemons, Terra Rica are back on with some red and yellow peppers and Las Hortchuelas some cucumbers.
- From Holland, Zann has yellow peppers, bergamot, Spinoso clems and abate fetel pears.
- From France, Bio & Bio adds hass avocados again and our top picks from Dynamis are patidou squash, Campari tomatoes, fresh turmeric, fuyu kaki fruit and papaya.
- To line your pantry’s, we have fettuccine from Fresh Flour and lots of juice from Ekolo again.
Last week I signed off by mentioning that the great Alan Bennett once bought one of our cabbages. Well, it seems he’s not the only celeb on the good stuff! Loads of you sent in names (embarrassingly many of which I’d never heard of!) but some highlights include Ian Brown enjoying the garlic in Cheshire and Echo and the Bunnymen’s bassist regularly filling up from one of our retailers in Lancashire. Other notable fans of the organic stuff are Kelly McDonald (Diane from Trainspotting), Super Furry Animals, The Pastels, Billie Eilish and Falmouth Food coop even had one of Robbie Williams’ former backing singers volunteer with them! : )
What a time to be alive,
Sean, Mads, Alph, Ell, Cathryn and Team ON x
It was a busy week getting pumpkins out to everyone in time for Halloween! 👻
A few snaps from some of our customers: on the left, a lovely pumpkin from Purple Carrot in Liverpool. On the right, some Crown Prince from La Fontana Bistro in Bakewell. And underneath, just a few of the whopping 94 pumpkins our driver Damien delivered to the guys at Pennine Cropshare! 😮
Back at ONHQ, some of the team got into the Halloween spirit too, carving a few pumpkins (and swedes!) of our own. So here are a couple of our creations! 🎃
