Fruit & Veggie Co-op

This semester saw the start of a fruit and veggie co-op on campus, run by the Student Association. My friend Jacqui, who is also the welfare support worker, saw the need for cheap and healthy food for students who are often struggling to study, work, and afford rent, housing, and other necessities of life.

The way it works: you pay a $2 membership fee at the start of the semester, and then every Friday you place an order for the following week. Jacqui takes the money for that week’s orders and buys as much as she possibly can from a local wholesaler (produce comes from within ~300 km at most), and then splits it up evenly between the orders. For $12.50, I buy the smaller of the two options (the other is $25 I think, for a big box).

This week, my $12.50 got me this order, which is more than enough to sustain me for a week on produce-filled meals.

There is a red coral lettuce, 4 bananas, 6 tomatoes, an avocado, a bunch of carrots, 4 mandarins, 4 apples, a pumpkin wedge, 4 onions, 3 potatoes, half a cucumber and an ear of corn which didn’t make the photo.

When I supplement this with tofu, dried beans, and some veggies that we stuck in the freezer a few weeks ago, this order means that I don’t have to go grocery shopping, which is fantastic!

Plus, the amount of food in the small order fits perfectly (though heavily) inside of my backpack so I can bike it home.