FRESH FOOD ON THE PHONE
Farm launches app for home delivery
Some folks remember when milk, eggs and bread were delivered to Windsor homes while others can reminisce about vendors with carts of vegetables making their way along streets in Europe.
A Kingsville farm has not only reintroduced home delivery with a focus on fresh vegetables and other local products, including eggs and bread, it has a new app so you can order from your phone.
“I often refer to us as the modern milkman,” said Kathy Mastronardi-Black, vice-president of Lee and Maria’s retail and wholesale operations.
Lee and Maria’s — a 40-acre farm east of Kingsville on Seacliff Drive that has been offering home delivery of its vegetables and other local food for five years — may be the first farm in Canada to offer a phone app for deliveries. The farm hasn’t seen anything like it in the app store in Canada offering fresh fruits and vegetables without a sign-up fee or delivery charge.
Big box stores are getting into online orders for groceries. Zehrs has customers pick up their online orders and Walmart is starting to offer grocery delivery with fees to certain locations in Toronto.
Lee and Maria’s produce is picked fresh the day it is delivered, Mastronardi-Black said.
The farm started by her parents and now run by their three children expected its base for home delivery to be seniors. It turned out to be young families who wanted to buy local but didn’t have time to drive to a farm or a farmer’s market.
Their customers used to have to log into the farm’s website but now they can order or change their order with their phone, see specials and get an alert when their bin is delivered.
The app allows you to choose a bin ranging from $18 to a $55 large organic bin and order once, weekly or bi-weekly. Each bin has a list of vegetables and fruit in season that will be in the bin that week and customers can switch out the items they don’t like for similarly-priced vegetables. The farm grows about 20 different crops and gets produce from farms in Essex County and Chatham-Kent. For convenience, they do sell fruit such as bananas and lemons that aren’t grown here. They include a newsletter and recipes. At first the farm couldn’t get rid of kale and now customers want it.
One unintended benefit was that some families are spending more time together, she said.
“They’re choosing to eat healthier and they’re choosing to eat and cook as a family again. So they’re spending that quality time like the old days,” said Mastronardi-Black.
Her husband, Kevin Black, a former radio reporter, said they used to sell fruit and vegetables at Saturday morning markets and see customers who could only carry so much of it home. The farm started home deliveries five years ago with 70 customers. They added vehicles and employees as their customers grew to 1,000 subscribers with about 60 per cent in Windsor.
“That’s kind of our success — where people don’t eat vegetables but they want to. And everybody wants to be able to say they are supporting local farms but don’t have time to drive to the county,” Black said.
The farm isn’t delivering milk but customers can add a variety of local products to their bin of vegetables. The app offers eggs, bread from Lakeside Bakery, Craft Head’s cold brew coffee, Brewin’ Bros. detox tea, Lakeside Pickles, Sun Parlour Honey and a long list of other local products, including frozen perogies, spinach pies and ravioli. There’s a pantry on the app that offers gluten-free, natural and organic products.
The home delivery stops in midDecember and starts up again in April.
(Families are) ... choosing to eat and cook as a family again. So they’re spending that quality time like the old days.