Eastern Suburbs Fruit & Vege Co-op

About

A Fruit & Vege Co-op in the Eastern Suburbs of Wellington, serving Miramar, Strathmore and surrounds. Based at St Aidan's Anglican Church, and on Tuesday

Story

Fresh fruit and vegetables at affordable prices for collection each week in Miramar and Strathmore.

For $12 (paid in advance) you get a bag each of fruit and vegetables for around half of the price you would pay at a shop. Bags have a variety of seasonal fruit and vegetables, about 8kg worth. You can order as many bags as you need.

If you've been a member of the fruit and vege co-op for a while, you may not be aware of how the co-op has evolved over the past two years.

We order on Friday morning - this hasn't changed; we still need your payment by Thursday to finalise numbers.

The fresh fruit and veg is delivered on Tuesday morning to St Aidan's in Miramar. We have a great team of volunteers that do a sterling job of setting up the work tables, unloading the delivery truck, packing the fruit and vege bags, and then cleaning it all up and putting everything away again. We aim to have every thing done by 11.30 am, but we're getting so good at it this is creeping towards 11.00!

We have volunteers come in to St Aidan's between 3.30pm and 5.30 pm to help with the collection of orders.

We also have a team from Island Bay Presbyterian Church who run the collections in Berhampore; they are ably co-ordinated by Bruce Hamil, and have their own facebook page and newsletter.

The relationship between the Vege Co-op and Shop 89 (the op shop run by St Aidan's Church) has turned out to be very beneficial for both; the shop reaps the benefit of having vege co-op customers coming through- Increased foot traffic! - and the vege co-op benefits from having an accessible contact point where customers can find out information, make payments, and pick up their orders.

In 2016 Bobbi stepped down from co-ordinating the vege co-op, and this position was filled by Meri Grace, who now manages both the op-shop and the vege co-op.

The "Pop-Up Shop" is a new development in 2017. While the vege co-op has always had excess to sell after packing, we now have the ability to order products specifically for this; so we now have a wider range of products available, with staples like Potatoes, Carrots, and Onions available every week.

Fruit and Vege for the Pop-Up Shop go on sale after packing is completed on Tuesday morning, and are sold on a first come , first served basis. Word has spread of our first class fruit and vege at budget prices, so be in early for these as there is great demand.

It's great to hear how many people are enjoying their fresh produce, so keep up the good eating!