This is my seventh fruit box review! My first was on Aussie Farmers Direct, and I was really disappointed. My second was on Organic Angels, which had great produce but was pretty expensive. My third was on Ceres Fair Food, which had great variety in its produce. Fourth was from the earth fruitnveg, who had great variety and great customer service. Fifth was The Organic Empire, which was completely boring. Greenline Organic was equal to all of the other options, with great variety and good produce.
The Organic Butler was all fancy-pants produce. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to its name. For being a very expensive box, it got my hopes up, but it wasn’t particularly impressive.
A Seasonal FRUIT Box – $70 + no delivery charge
- 18x apples
- 6x pears
- 10x nashi pears
- 10x kiwi fruit
- 15x bananas
- 11x oranges
It had a range of days that you could have your produce delivered, and I chose a Friday.
The good: The apples were crunchy.
The bad: A couple of nashi pears and apples came a bit bruised. All of the bananas were very, very green when they came, and I couldn’t eat any for 5 days! I should have known to keep some in reserve from the last box… This was the same with the kiwifruit.
The ugly: The oranges, which I initially thought were grapefruit from their size, were dry and not that tasty. I turned them into juice because I couldn’t face eating them.
The final verdict: This was too much fruit for us. We couldn’t eat it all before it started going a bit past its prime, which pretty much destroys the point of making sure to get fresh produce each week. For the price, yeah ok, it was the same value per piece of fruit, but it just wasn’t great quality. This would come just above Aussie Farmers Direct for me. Disappointing.
Hi Bella,
I’ve just come across this review.
I am the owner of The Organic Butler and I just wanted to explain and apologize for your experience (as I would have been done if I were contacted with feedback upon the time of receiving your box and being unsatisfied).
Firstly, I’m sorry that you had this experience. Especially about the bruised fruit. This is terrible and we have no excuse for this, but have taken measures now to make sure this never occurs again. The packers have been updated with a new process/system to make sure every single box is packed the same way without anything being squashed.
To further explain about the other items, when you ordered, was in the middle of May. We offer a farmers report every week to explain how seasonal works, but we can understand, you may have missed it.
Navel oranges were beginning to dry up as they were at the end of season, and valencia oranges were about to begin – which were amazing this season!
It’s at this time that variation of fruit begins to dwindle and only the next two weeks or so after you receiving your box – we ceased the fruit boxes altogether for Winter.
The bananas and kiwi were extremely fresh – and not ready to eat yet. We do this as we’re a fresh food supplier. We prefer to give them at this stage so that its up to our customers when they think the perfect ripeness is for them. Some like them green, all the way up to brown and everything in between. This way we know everyone will be happy at some point. Once you get into a regular ordering cycle – this is optimum for having bananas to eat all week round 🙂
I hope this explains how seasonal/availability works.
And I hope that you will give us another try in the future – we’re more than happy to offer you a free box with free delivery, please just get in contact with me directly – I’ll pop my email below.
Thanks so much for talking about us, and giving us an opportunity to respond.
Beckii Jones – The Organic Butler.
Hi Beckii,
Thank you for visiting my post, and explaining why I might have had issues with your produce box. I find it very interesting that you ceased the fruit boxes in Winter, and I potentially should have taken this into account when reviewing the various produce box suppliers.
I’m excited to try your box again now that it is Summer and stone fruit is in season – readers, stand by for another review.
Regards,
Bella