I recenty decided to give Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks a try for my family’s weekly produce needs. Fresh Picks is a delivery service in the Midwest that offers plenty of veggie and/or fruit boxes, as well as ready-to-go meals, meats, dairy and other items. Fresh Picks produce delivery couldn’t have come onto my radar at a better time.
According to the website, Fresh Pick’s mission is to “make it easy to get great local food by rebuilding the connection between urban areas like Chicago & Milwaukee and surrounding farms.” I like that you can order locally grown foods, which is something that sets it apart from other produce services. Fresh Picks also partners with nonprofits, with a featured partnership every month. Past partners have included Local First Chicago and the Peterson Garden Project, which I have volunteered with in the past.
I was primarily looking for fruits and vegetables, so I picked the small Fresh Box Fruit/Veg Mini for $20. I wasn’t sure how much we would eat so I picked the smaller box. There’s also a seasonal share that is weekly or biweekly. Each week I can go onto the website, log in and see what is expected to arrive in my order. This week, for example, I should receive: bravo daikon radish, purple top turnips, carrots, spinach, tomato on the vine, navel oranges, Fuji apples and bananas. I also shopped for pasta sauce from a local company, as well as organic spaghetti. I added blueberries, limes and lemons. Some things are not local but much of it appears to be.
The order is left on your doorstep in a gray bin that they will pick up on your next delivery day. If you won’t be ordering for a while you can contact them to arrange a pickup. I like that this reduced waste by reusing the same bins.
After four deliveries I can say I like the service and it makes it easy to get organic, non-GMO produce and groceries. There are some things in the box, though, that we don’t normally eat. For example: turnips. I have no idea how to cook them, so I had to google an easy recipe in order to use them. In our first weeks we have pretty much used all of our order with the exception of when we traveled out of town. I should have planned better that week.
I decided to switch my order to the Produce Staples Kit, which has potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, one bunch of greens, two apples, two bananas, two oranges and one lemon. I would then add other things I want. Or I might switch to the seasonal share. FreshPicks has many boxes to choose from, including a juicing box with ingredients tailored to those who like to juice. I also saw meals such as Mediterranean bowls available for purchase.
If you’d like to get started with Fresh Picks produce delivery in the Midwest, check out the reccuring deal: 20 percent off plus free delivery when you sign up for one month of delivery.
Have you tried Fresh Picks or a similar service?
Get $20 off your order through this link! I am now an ambassador for Fresh Picks!
