I first started looking for organic veg box delivery schemes over 8 years ago and once I tried out Riverford, I knew it was just what I was looking for. I’ve been using them ever since because I think they’re a great alternative to supermarkets, offer sustainable food choices and make healthy eating a real pleasure. And whilst I’m not saying that they’re perfect, they come pretty close and I can forgive them the occasional squashy tomato! So, if you’re interested in eating organic food that also helps to reduce your environmental impact, find out more about this innovative company by reading my Riverford review below.
Pros
- Quality
- Range
- Sustainability
- Easy to use
Cons
- Cost
- Not vegan
Who owns Riverford?
Founded by Guy Singh-Watson, who started out delivering organic fruit & veg to friends over 30 years ago, Riverford has since become 100% employee-owned and delivers to about 50,000 customers every week. A lifelong vocal campaigner for organic farming, he is still growing and supplying some of the produce, and provides leadership and advice to the business that he is clearly still fervently committed to.
This business has built a loyal following and you can read other independent Riverford reviews on Trustpilot where they have an ‘excellent’ rating.
My experience of Riverford veg box deliveries
I’ve been a customer of Riverford for over 8 years, yet still look forward to my weekly delivery. Yes, I need to get out more, but I’m also a vegan food enthusiast who is keen to shop sustainably and with a strong desire to not hand over my entire food budget to large supermarkets. And I love cooking with good quality organic vegetables, so my regular veg box really does give me a lot of great reasons to remain a loyal customer.
They have a wide selection of boxes to choose from too, although I regularly order either the medium-sized box that contains no packaging at all, or the one that comprises only UK produce. That said, they do import products from other organic farms they partner with in Europe (with absolutely no air miles involved) so I sometimes top up my order with individual fruit and veg that is out of season in the UK, depending on the time of year. Occasionally, I make up my own box if there are specific items that I want but generally, I enjoy the challenge of creating meals based around what I know I’m going to be getting in my delivery. And if it’s proving too much of a challenge, their recipe section and veg hack videos are amazingly helpful and frequently provide me with inspiration for a meal!
I find the quality of Riverford’s fruit and veg is consistently good too – I maintain that you can’t get tastier apples anywhere else – and the flavour of their produce is always far superior to anything I buy elsewhere, organic or not. Yes, I have to clean the mud off the carrots occasionally, and some of them may not look quite as uniformly shaped as the ones in the supermarket, but I love them all the more for that!
To balance all of this though, whilst they are committed to organic and sustainable farming, they are not a vegan company and I imagine that their growing medium and fertilisers will contain at least some animal-based elements. So in that regard, I am making a compromise because I have yet to find a delivery scheme that is vegan, organic, delivers to my area, and offers the range I need to avoid buying additional produce from the supermarket. And whilst I don’t condone the rearing of any animals for human gain and consumption, it’s difficult to avoid wherever it’s farmed.
But overall, my experience of Riverford is extremely positive and on the very rare occasion when an item is missing or damaged, their customer service team is quick to respond and to date, they have always resolved it to my satisfaction. So, unless a fully vegan equivalent becomes available, I have every intention of remaining a happy and loyal Riverford customer! The next section looks at the pros and cons in more detail.
I’m impressed by the quality
I have never had any significant issues with the quality of Riverford’s products. That maybe because they will not include it in the box if it isn’t of the right quality when it reaches their packing teams and on those (very rare) occasions, I receive an email the day before to advise me. It’s true to say that some products might be a bit muddy sometimes, and they might not always be the uniform shapes that you get from the supermarket but that’s because the supermarkets simply reject anything that doesn’t ‘look the part’.
But the thing I notice most is the taste and there really is no comparison between the flavoursome produce I get from Riverford, and the bland, mass-produced fruit and veg from supermarkets. Until I started using Riverford, I had honestly forgotten how good an apple or a carrot could taste, as you can find out here in my Carrot and Cumin soup recipe!
Riverford offers an impressive range of products
I think the range offered is so varied. They do veg boxes, fruit boxes, combinations of the 2 and they all come in different sizes to suit the relevant number of people in your household. There are also different ones to choose from each week and my regulars tend to be from one of the following:
However, there are lots more to choose from and on the rare occasion when I haven’t wanted one of the pre-determined boxes, I have simply selected my own range from their extensive list of fruits and vegetables.
In addition to the fruit and vegetables, Riverford also offer other staples like tofu, plant-based milks, and the most fabulous sourdough bread. You can see their full vegan range here.
And…they also do amazing recipe boxes that change each week and regularly have 4 plant-based options to choose from. It’s great to let someone else do the thinking for me sometimes!
It offers me a sustainable way to eat
Aside from the quality of the produce, Riverford have put a huge amount of thought into their packaging with home compostable bags, vegetable and fruit trays, and their use of brown paper bags for heavier items like potatoes and beetroot. My order comes in a larger cardboard box that is re-used several times over, so I leave my boxes out for collection when my next delivery is due – simple!
But of course it is also about the farming methods used and Riverford Organic Farmers are just that – organic. The business is:
- fully certified by both the Soil Association and B-Corp
- creating woodland
- investing in wind power
- driving (get it?) towards a 100% electric delivery fleet in 2025
- committed to zero air freight
- delivering its biodiversity action plan
And these are just some of the things they are doing. I believe too that organically grown produce will contain more nutrients than most fruits and vegetables we buy in supermarkets so I’m confident that I am eating food that is better for me and reduces my need for supplements – and that’s got to be a good thing, right?
Riverford is so easy to use
If you’re wondering how Riverford works, look no further! Simply enter your postcode into their website and if they deliver to your area, it will let you know your delivery day (which is a set day each week). Register for an account, then shop, ensuring your order reaches their low minimum spend. You can change your selection up to 48 hours before your scheduled delivery day and the next thing you know, you’ll have a box of fresh, high quality organic fruit and vegetables delivered to your door! Payment is taken direct from your bank account the night before, and you don’t even have to be in – just tell them about a safe place for them to leave it. It really is very simple. And if you want to pause deliveries, that is also very easy to do in your online account with them.
The only problem? They have an excellent delivery network, but don’t yet cover the entire UK mainland. Certainly most of England is covered, and parts of Wales, but I’m not sure they yet extend into Scotland.
Is Riverford value for money?
Yes, I believe it is good value for money. However, cost may be an issue for some, although prices are broadly comparable to organic produce sold by the large supermarkets (and I believe Riverford’s organic produce is better quality and more sustainably grown and delivered). Worth factoring in too is their free delivery, so I guess I would encourage anyone whose budget is tight to buy at least a small box of organic produce occasionally if they possibly can.
It’s not a vegan business
This is the big compromise for me. Riverford Organic farms are not certified as vegan, and they do also sell meat boxes. This means too – I suspect – that animal by-products may be used in the growing of their fruits and vegetables such as fertiliser etc. I have thought long and hard about this, and also looked for vegan suppliers but to date I have been unsuccessful. And this will be no different wherever I buy my produce from – supermarkets, greengrocers etc – so it’s a compromise, but as vegans we also have little choice for now. That may change in the future, who knows?
My verdict on this Riverford review
You can probably tell that I’m a big fan of this brand! And important to note that I am a genuine, long-term customer of theirs and have received no free product or payment for this review.
They offer a healthy and sustainable way to eat, their 100% organic produce is consistently of good quality, and I love the range of food I can get from them – including their amazing sourdough loaf pictured above! I’m impressed that they have gone over to total employee ownership and whilst they’re not the cheapest, I would strongly recommend using them if you can because apart from anything else, I believe that businesses which try to do good in the world really deserve our custom. My only wish is for them to see the error of their ways and go vegan!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Riverford veg box review. If you’re interested in vegan food, you can read some of my other reviews and recipes below.
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