A review of the produce delivery service FarmBox Direct. Offering organic or natural fruit and veggie boxes in a range of sizes, they have something for every household. Read more about them and find out how to get your own custom box delivered to your door!

What is FarmBox Direct

FarmBox Direct is a female founded company whose goal is to bring the farmers market to your doorstep! They have a straightforward website where you can choose natural or organic produce, fruits or vegetables or a combination of both, and the size of your box.

Box Options

Organic vs. Natural – One thing I love about FarmBox Direct is that they have organic produce, but they also offer a slightly cheaper "natural" produce box. All their produce comes from family farms and supports local businesses.

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Size Options: How much you cook at home will influence what size box you'll want. A small box is a good way to test out the service, a medium box is a good bet for someone who cooks most dinners at home and a large produce box would be perfect for either a large family or someone who will share. The large box also has access to premium items not available in smaller boxes.

Fruit vs Veggies: You can also choose if you want a combination of fruits and vegetables, only veggies, or only fruits. Fruit boxes would be good for gifts or if you want healthy snacks, but if you're planning on cooking meals with your produce then the combo or all veggies box would be the way to go.

Juicing:They also now have a box specifically for juicing purposes! You can choose from greens, reds or orange colored produce.

What Was in the Small Box

I tried the small organic box with mixed fruits and veggies. Keep in mind that the default produce will vary each week based on seasonality and availability. When making the choices for your box, you are also able to substitute up to 5 items if you don't care for a certain fruit or vegetable. Here is an example of what I received in my box:

• 1 head of garlic
• 1 onion
• 4 apples
• 3 oranges
• 2 pears
• 2 kiwis
• 4 small potatoes
• 4 carrots (1 small bunch)
• 2 zucchini
• 1 box grape tomatoes
• leafy greens (not pictured)

Everything looked (and tasted!) great minus the leafy greens, which unfortunately were too filled with bugs to be brought into the house. Coming from a farm, these things happen! They do say on their website they will replace any damaged items in your box.

What I made with my produce box:

Some recipes I decided to make with my organic produce are variations of these favorite recipes:

• Potato and carrot soup (a version of this chunky potato soup)
• Fruit Salsa
• Zucchini Frittata (also used the onion and tomatoes for this!)
• Apple Nachos
• They say a small produce box is good for about 3-4 meals, which sounds about right!

What Else to Know

According to some reader comments, Farmbox Direct does seem to be pretty strict with their cutoff times for shipping. So if you miss the deadline to change or cancel your order for the next week, don't expect a refund.

While they say they ship from local farms, how "local" it will be will depend on your location and what farms they currently source from. As I understand it, the farms could be based in the midwest and shipped to the west coast, as an example. Local farming simply means short distribution channels – channels involving no more than one intermediary between farm and consumer.

Pricing is always a consideration. For a company like this, prices generally will be more than buying from your grocer but you are supporting small farms and getting it sent to you, so you can consider if the trade-off is worth it.

Please also note that since this review is based on my experience, I welcome questions in the comments below that I can help answer but I will remove comments that are better suited for Farmbox Direct customer service. Their contact information is on their website.