Crop Drop – groceries for the community, from the community

Local and organic vegetable box organizations have been around for many years, their steady and continuous growth in popularity thanks in part to consumers becoming increasingly aware of the processes and pitfalls behind industrial-scale commercial farming, and of the environmental problems of shipping imported produce half way across the globe.

For those eager to find an alternative to the supermarkets there are many national veg box schemes to choose from, but us lucky folk in Haringey have our very own scheme that caters exclusively for the local area.

Crop Drop is a community led initiative that provides organic fruit and vegetables for its residents at as low a cost as possible.

It sources its produce from nearby farms which means while getting super fresh affordable organic produce we
can also support farmers as local as Wood Green and Enfield. If you’re concerned about the carbon footprint of your food then you can’t get much more efficient than that.

As a very happy customer myself I was honoured to be able to speak to Crop Drop director Rachael Dring and her colleague Kieran Houston to find out more about it.

So what inspired you to start Crop Drop?
I had a bit of a career break a few years ago and I wanted to put my energy and time into doing something that made a difference to the environment. When you start to research into sustainability it doesn’t take you very long to discover the way food is produced and traded is destroying the natural systems that underpin agriculture.

Just by coincidence I met Julie Brown, director of Growing Communities, which is the Hackney based organic veg scheme and we got chatting. She told me about the start-up programme they run where they help small organisations set up box schemes using the same values and principles as Growing Communities.

When I looked into the difference it makes and the values of promoting a mainly plant based diet, having a shorter supply chain, providing an alternative to the supermarket monopolies and getting people closer in relationship to their food, it ticked all the boxes.

[heading size=”20″]“Organic food isn’t just for the privileged few”[/heading]

How has Crop Drop evolved over the last two years?
At the start it was just me and a friend who helped to set things up, and my brother doing the deliveries in his little car. We started with just 17 customers.

Tottenham became a strong customer base and more people started getting involved as volunteers. It’s still a small team, with a core of three people, plus a group of volunteers who help with the packing.

Are all your suppliers organic growers?
Our suppliers are certified organic with a few exceptions such as “Living Under One Sun” which is a community allotment down in Tottenham Hale who don’t have organic certification, because they are a small site and haven’t gone through that process.

We’re not an organic certified scheme for this reason, we wanted that flexibility to support smaller suppliers that don’t necessarily have the resources to get the certification but we specifically only buy from growers that are growing to organic standards.

What support do you get from the wider community?
We’ve received a lot of support from Growing Communities in Hackney, as well as working with other sustainability and food related groups and growers in the borough like Edible Landscapes London in Finsbury Park Urban Harvest, Living Under One Sun and Wolves Lane Horticultural Centre.

Then there are our wonderful Drop Points, all local, independent businesses who’ve been fantastic custodians of our veg every Thursday, including Craving Coffee, The Engine Room, The Beehive, Chicken Town, Hornsey Vale Community Centre, The Woodman, Blighty Coffee, Sika Oriental Express, and Cafe Blend.

What are your future hopes for Crop Drop?
We want to start some growing sites in Haringey where we can grow salads, herbs and soft fruits for the veg bags. We have lots of potential space in Haringey we can use but we need to get to 300 customers by summer so we can get some surplus income to develop sites.

The big dream is to set up our own Haringey Food Hub, a base not only for the box scheme but also for other sustainable start up schemes such as a community shop or food sharing group where people can buy in bulk so that local people can by good food for cheaper.

I think that the important thing is that organic food isn’t just for the privileged few and we’re trying to make it as cheap as possible for people, which is why we do the drop points instead of home deliveries and use reusable bags. We have lots of grand ideas so keep your eyes peeled. 

Interview by Suzanne Williams
Photos by André Ainsworth