The shop
A greengrocer is a shop, a van and a phone that rings at four in the morning. Each of the six has a page with what it costs and how it works.
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.
The week
Carol leaves for the wholesale market at a quarter to four and is back by half six. The café orders come off the van first, then the pavement crates, then the shelves.
Rhys packs the veg boxes in the back from eight, loads by half nine and is on the round from ten until about two, porch by porch.
The eggs come down from Llangynwyd; the Vale grower drops leeks, kale and whatever is ready; the tickets get rewritten.
What will not keep goes in crates for the Llynfi valley food bank, collected on Monday; peelings go to the allotments on Bridgend Road.
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.
