With recent farming interruptions to Queensland and New South Wales, the early cold snap in weather and other global events, we’ve seen a huge increase in fruit and vegetable prices, which has led to us to making the very difficult decision to remove most vegetable items off our website.
The recent floods in QLD and NSW has completely wiped out crops that would ordinarily feed the country during the cooler months as the climate further north is able to continue growing fruit and veggies that don't tolerate the cooler weather in the southern states.
Another influencing factor is the increase in cost to produce fruit and veggies. There's been labour shortages since the pandemic, resulting in less farmers and in turn, less production, which increases the price of the product. The cost of fertiliser has almost doubled as well as seeds, plants and irrigation systems so the cost to produce crops has dramatically increased.
It doesn't stop there though. As you've probably seen, the cost of fuel has increased to over $2 a litre which means that the cost of distributing fruit and veg across the country has also increased.
We know that vegetables are a crucial element to your weekly shop, so we’ve decided to keep one fruit and vegetable box on. It’s slightly smaller than our current vegetable box and the price reflects the national farming issues that we’re facing. This box will be filled with the same seasonal produce that you know and love, but it will all be dependent on availability of products. An average Veggie Box could include the following products:
If you have any questions at all, as always, get in touch. You can email us at heybutcher@hagensorganics.com.au.
If you have room for the ice gel packs in your freezer, hold onto them as they come in very handy, particularly throughout picnic and bbq season! They last twice as long as bags of ice, they are leakproof and have minimal condensation so your picnic items won’t be spoilt or damaged. We understand that if you're doing your online shop once a week, that you may have too many reusable gel packs for your freezer to handle.