When we subscribed to CSA's in the past, we ran into a few difficulties:
- Inflexibility: What do you do when you get Fennel for 5 weeks or if you have an eggplant allergy in your family? Or what if you grow your own tomatoes and just can't handle any more?
- The Off-Season: The Bay Area has a plentiful & long growing season, but from November to February, we are often left to fend for ourselves as farmers markets clear out and CSAs wind down. It's understandable, but what to the "average" consumers do during that time? Many turn to Safeway.
Technology offers some quick fixes for these challenges and by focusing on the NETWORKING & outreach of a traditional CSA, Becky works with the clients and allows the growers to focus on growing.
Here's what we like about eatwiththeseasons.com:
- The email reminder keeps you up-to-date and makes sure that you can have a say in what goes into your box. And if you forget, your box is still packed for you.
- Their system of choosing what goes into your box allows you to avoid food your family might be allergic to (or that you know you just won't eat), or that you might be growing yourself while staying with what's in season & local.
- The flexibility in the SIZE of box available makes this a great option for single person households as well as larger households. And there are always options to order additional vegetables, if available.
- This sounds petty, but the fact that they accept credit cards in a HUGE convenience factor and I would imagine that it saves them time in having to track down people who might forget to send their checks.
- Their MONTHLY accounting system also allows for flexibility in the ebb & flow of daily life (some of us need more veggies during certain months than others- or eggs- or whatever)
- There are limitted "off-season" subscriptions for loyal customers. Choices are more limitted, just like the local farmers market, but it is there as an option.
- Their alliances with multiple growers, ranchers, egg producers, coffee & tea providers and local farmers market regulars allows them to offer a great variety of items at a convenience. And each of these producers is introduced by Becky as our intermediary, who can introduce us to them. This is a big help in navigating the ever-increasingly complicated & sophisticated landscape of "organic, local, sustainable & all-natural" producers.
Becky & eatwiththeseasons.com has become a figure we feel we can trust in figuring out what to get, from whom and in a way that our family can manage in the midst of Silicon Valley "Busy-ness."