Home & Garden Home The Best Produce Delivery Services By Pete Scherer Pete Scherer Recipe developer University of Southern California Pete Scherer is a private chef, freelance writer and photographer, focusing on farm-to-table food, artisan baking, green living, and sustainability. Learn about our editorial process Updated January 10, 2022 Fact checked by Dale Brauner Fact checked by Dale Brauner LinkedIn Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Manhattan School of Music Dale is an experienced fact-checker and researcher with a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Learn about our fact checking process Share Twitter Pinterest Email Home Sustainable Eating Pest Control Natural Cleaning DIY Family Green Living Thrift & Minimalism We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Learn more. Treehugger /Design by Amelia Manley The 6 Best Produce Delivery Services of 2022 Best Overall: Imperfect Foods Easiest: Farmbox Direct Best Local: CropSwap Best Fruit: The FruitGuys Best Restaurant Experience: The Chef’s Garden Best Raw Box: Farm Fresh To You Best Overall: Imperfect Foods Imperfect Foods Sign Up Now Ever wonder why all the produce at the grocery store has the same perfect shape and size? Nature is too chaotic to put out fruits and vegetables in the same shape and size every week, right? All of the food that doesn’t meet perfect grocery store standards is piled up and shipped off—one of the many waste products of our industrialized epoch. There are many reasons why perfectly good food doesn’t make it to grocery store shelves—cosmetic, off-spec, a surplus of the same product, a branding change, edible parts of the plant that are deemed unsellable—but now we can enjoy these beautifully imperfect fruits and vegetables and have them delivered to our homes, with Imperfect Foods. Start by heading to Imperfect Foods and choosing either a Regular Box (beginning at $26-$36) or Organic Box (beginning at $34–44). They will fill the box with their standard offerings, but you can also add produce as you see fit. And then hit send. It’s that easy to become part of the movement to end food waste. Imperfect Foods also works with organizations supported through their donated food program and has donated around 3 million pounds of food with the help of nonprofit partners to help end hunger. Why Treehugger? Imperfect Foods takes the crown of best overall because their mission to reduce waste is a Hero’s Journey. Their food tastes exactly like what we get from every grocer, and they ship their misshapen items directly to our doorstep. Imperfect Foods has saved 139 million pounds of produce in its history. They are truly changing the produce market. Easiest: Farmbox Direct Farmbox Direct Sign Up Now Sometimes we just want food delivery to be easy. Point, click, food. Farmbox Direct is the easiest of the delivery services because there’s very little thought involved. You simply choose a size, decide if you want fruit, vegetables, or both, and check out. It’s an incredibly quick and easy way to get great fruits and vegetables delivered. The box comes in three sizes: small, medium, and large, and either organic or natural. An all-natural medium box starts at around $58, or $67 for organic produce. The medium box includes food for about five meals per week, with enough fruit to take you through the week. They send you a list of what’s in the box beforehand so you can start your menu planning in advance. And all shipping materials are biodegradable or recyclable, so you can be sure you’re doing your part to protect the earth. Head to Farmbox Direct to get started on a hassle-free produce delivery service. Why Treehugger? All of the farms and vendors are hand-picked by the founder and CEO Ashley Turner, whose commitment to quality food is based on her own experience as a career Mom looking for the best food for her kids. And all of the food items are organic and natural. Best Local: CropSwap CropSwap Sign Up Now CropSwap is an app that connects you to local farmers. It bridges the gap between the grocery store and the farmer and makes sure you’re buying and eating the freshest local food from farmers you know and trust. And with CropSwap, you can be sure you’re always getting the best fruits and vegetables of the season. It’s called farm-to-phone, and it makes shopping super easy. They handpick ripe fruits and vegetables and send them straight to your house, with no middle man. So the food itself is traveling fewer miles, which is a net positive in every direction, both on the food and our carbon footprint. Just download the app and start searching in your neighborhood. It’s powered in a way that looks like Google Maps or Airbnb, and you can search by product or locality. Would you like a Microgreens box for about $13? It’s there. How about a mushroom variety box for around $20? Click on it and order. It’s that simple. Why Treehugger? CropSwap works to find growers who use organic, sustainable, and chemical-free farming practices. Best Fruit: The FruitGuys The FruitGuys Sign Up Now The FruitGuys are the earliest adopters to the produce delivery game—they’ve been at it since 1998, so you know they’re going to be a trusted source for fruit. They started in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, and they created what is probably the first farm-to-table delivery service in the country after the milkman went out of business. They also give back to the community, donating lots of fruits and vegetables every year. Head to their home delivery page and enter your zip code to determine which of their farms you’ll be shopping from. You can choose fruits only (either Staples Mix or a Harvest Mix), or a mix of fruits and vegetables. All three options start at under $34 for a small box, or you can bump your box up to the medium or large size. Why Treehugger? The FruitGuys source their produce from over 200 small, independent, and family-run farms nationwide, giving preference to those farms local to The FruitGuys’ 14 regional hubs. Best Restaurant Experience: The Chef’s Garden The Chef’s Garden Sign Up Now Some of us strive to recreate the restaurant experience at home, or even better, beat them at their own game, impressing friends and family with the skills of a restaurant-quality chef on a weekend warrior’s schedule. If this sounds like you, The Chef’s Garden is your produce delivery service. They bring the highest quality produce, and even some of those hard-to-find vegetables, directly to your door—so you can really prove your passion for the culinary arts. The Chef’s Garden has been delivering produce straight from the farm for over 30 years. And now it can be your go-to home delivery service. The Chef’s Garden is actually a family-run farm that has been delivering specialty items to 300 restaurants across the nation for decades—so they are legit. The Introduction Box is around $69 for a collection of basics and specialty produce, which might include lettuces, potatoes, microgreens, root vegetables, and herbs. Or you can go bigger with their Best of the Season Box for around $69. Why Treehugger? The farm was built on their grandfathers’ traditional farming practices, eschewing pesticides, employing sustainable crop rotation to revitalize the soil, and planting cover crops to enrich the soil with nutritionally-dense compost. Best Raw Box: Farm Fresh To You Farm Fresh To You Sign Up Now We all have those days—when we don’t want to cook, but want super crisp and fresh vegetables to eat without thinking about it. Farm Fresh To You has a box that includes all of your favorite vegetables right off the vine. Their No Cooking Box comes in three sizes, starting around $28 for a small, around $35 for a medium, and around $49 for a large. You can even add products with your box to specialize your order to include exactly what you want. You can also get a Snack Box that starts at around $38 for a mini size. Head to farmfreshtoyou.com and get your delivery started as fast. Why Treehugger? Farm Fresh to You uses only local fertilizers, has impeccable water management, keeps their labor paid year-round with fair wages, rotates crops to prevent disease, is chemical-free, and allows biodiversity, with natural plants growing alongside their produce. This is one wild farm. Methodology We searched far and wide for the best array of delivery options, hoping to find the vanguard of delivery services—like CropSwap for the most tech-savvy of chefs—but we also wanted to find the more traditional methods—like Farm Fresh to You, The Fruit Guys, and The Chef’s Garden who have been at the fresh produce game for a long time. And we just had to include our personal favorite for their commitment to eliminating food waste, Imperfect Foods, who are changing our understanding of what should and should not be on our tables. We thoroughly researched reviews and made sure we brought out the best of the best in produce delivery.