Open now until 5:30pm
A greengrocer on Commercial Street since 1994: the market three mornings a week, Welsh growers when they have it, every ticket saying where it came from, and everything loose.
The shop
01
The shop itself: thirty-odd crates of fruit and vegetables on the pavement and up the walls, bought at the market three mornings a week and from Welsh growers when they have it, every ticket priced and labelled with where it came from, all of it loose.
Potatoes £1.40 a kilo, carrots £1.20, onions £1.30, leeks 60p each, a Savoy £1.20, Cox apples £2.80 a kilo, bananas 22p each.
02
A box of what is good this week: small for one or two at £15, medium for three or four at £21, large for a family at £28. Built on this website with this week's contents listed, up to two swaps for things you do not eat, and the next delivery day for your area worked out from the clock. No subscription.
Small £15, medium £21, large £28.
03
Free-range eggs from a farm at Llangynwyd, two miles up the hill, delivered Tuesday and Friday; honey from twelve hives on the Garth, spring and heather; and a shelf of jams, chutneys and Welsh cakes from three people in the valley who make them in their own kitchens.
A dozen Llangynwyd eggs £3.60, half a dozen £1.90; Garth honey £7.50 a 340g jar, heather honey £8.50 in late summer; jams £3.80; Welsh cakes 50p each.
04
Fruit and veg for eleven cafés, two pubs, a care home and a primary school kitchen in the Llynfi valley, ordered by phone, text or email by 4pm and on the back step before eight the next morning. Market price plus a fixed margin, invoiced monthly.
Market price plus a fixed margin, written on a weekly price sheet.
05
A gift basket of the best fruit in the shop that week, made up on the counter in a wicker basket with a ribbon and a handwritten card: for a birthday, a get-well, a new baby, a funeral or a thank-you. From £25, delivered in the valley or collected.
Small basket £25, large £45.
06
The Christmas veg box for six to eight people at £32, or your own list, ordered by 18 December and collected on the 23rd or Christmas Eve morning, or delivered on the 23rd. Sprouts on the stalk, Welsh parsnips and carrots, red cabbage, chestnuts, cranberries and the potatoes for roasting.
The Christmas box £32 for six to eight.
This week's box
Potatoes, onions and carrots in every box, then whatever is in season this November from the calendar. Swap up to two things you do not eat; the slip shows what goes in instead. Choose where you live and it tells you the next round, counting from the 6pm cut-off the day before.
The rounds
The market
Three mornings a week Carol is at the wholesale market before the lorries have finished unloading, with the café orders on her phone and thirty years of knowing what a case of leeks should cost. On Tuesday and Friday the Vale grower and the Llangynwyd eggs come to the back door. Everything gets a ticket in her handwriting with the price and where it came from.
How we work
A Welsh strawberry in December does not exist, and we do not pretend. The calendar on this website says what is in season this month and what is coming in next; the shop follows it, and imports are labelled as imports.
Every crate has a ticket with the price per kilo or per item, written that morning. The box price is the same whatever goes in it; the scales on the counter are checked by Trading Standards every year.
No pre-packed trays, no film. Bring your own bag or take a paper one. Buy two potatoes, half a cabbage, a single lemon. The chalkboard by the door says what is best this week.
Bruised fruit goes into the £1 bowl by the till; what is left on Saturday at four goes to the Llynfi valley food bank on Monday; the peelings go to two allotments on Bridgend Road for their compost.
Customers
I swap the beetroot every week and the page tells me what I am getting instead before I order. Rhys leaves it in the porch on a Tuesday and takes the old box back. Twenty-one pounds and I do not go near the supermarket veg aisle any more.
Order by text at half three, it is on the back step at seven. When tomatoes went silly in March Carol rang to say so before she bought them. Six years with them and one wrong order, credited the same morning.
I buy two potatoes, an onion and whatever is in the pound bowl, and nobody has ever made me feel it is not worth their while. The leeks in winter are the best I have had since my father's allotment.
Build it on the boxes page: a size, up to two swaps and your area. The page shows the contents, the price and the next delivery day for your street. Send it with the order form and pay on the doorstep. There is no subscription.
From the wholesale market three mornings a week and from Welsh growers in the Vale, Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire when they have the crop. The ticket on every crate says where; imports say so.
Veg boxes and baskets go out on the rounds: Maesteg town three days a week, Caerau and Nantyffyllon two, Llangynwyd, Cwmfelin and the Garw valley on their days. Free around the Llynfi valley, £2.50 to the Garw.
Yes. One carrot, half a cabbage, a single lemon. Everything is loose and weighed on the counter.
Eleven cafés, two pubs, a care home and a school kitchen. Order by 4pm and it is on your step before eight; the wholesale page under What we do has the details.
Cards, cash and contactless in the shop and on the doorstep. Café accounts are invoiced monthly.
Small £15, medium £21 or large £28, this month's veg, two swaps if you want them, and the next round for your area worked out before you order. Free delivery around the Llynfi valley. No subscription; pay on the doorstep.
