Back in January, Will Box and his business partner, Jonny Honeyman, had the idea to start a home & office delivery service delivering fruit and veg boxes - BoxedFresh - which would run alongside the wholesale business InterFresh.
“I suppose the idea came from the requests I always had from friends and family to deliver produce to them. I have always done this at Christmas, but we decided to open this up to the public and do it on a bigger scale. In January we were delivering locally,” said Will.
Having started up this service and a website for orders they were well placed to ramp things up when the UK went into lockdown in March. BoxedFresh saw a sharp uptake in orders and expanded their delivery area to cover the same as the wholesale side of the business.
“Orders declined when we came out of the first lockdown, however the quality, convenience and variety has meant we have retained a substantial, loyal customer base. We offer a couple of options, either a fruit only box, a veg only box or a mixed box; all in varying sizes to suit different sized households. We didn’t go down the route of doing bespoke orders as it was very time consuming. Customers can add ‘extras’ to the box, with a range of locally produced groceries available, or to make requests for changes due to dietary requirements. We make changes to the contents every week or so and have found that people like the surprise and many are being introduced to seasonal produce they wouldn’t normally buy”
BoxedFresh have over 3000 subscribers to their website and send out a newsletter with information on what is going to be in the box and recipe suggestions for customers.
“We don’t try to compete with the supermarkets on price, that’s just not achievable, but we do concentrate on quality. We try to use locally sourced produce as far as possible. At the moment we have our Christmas boxes available for pre-order with all the traditional Christmas veg.”
England is still in the 2nd full lockdown so the wholesale side of the business is quiet again, but Will is hopeful that when it lifts next week people will start eating out again.
For more information:
Will Box
BoxedFresh / InterFresh
Tel: +44 1228 642510
sales@inter-fresh.co.uk
www.inter-fresh.co.uk/