Lufa is operating on a quasi-subscription model. If you sign up with them, they have a weekly basket of veggies and fruit coming your way. You can either custom tailor this basket three days in advance or you can just let them send you whatever they have. The contents vary seasonally. Their greenhouses usually grow tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and kale derivatives, microgreens and herbs. You get charged on a per basket basis and the empty baskets have to be returned to them (usually they take empty ones at next week’s Drop-off).
With the weekly baskets they can gauge demand pretty well.
Anecdotal: If I lived alone or with another omnivore like me, I’d be happy to keep the baskets running either with whatever Lufa puts into it or with some micro managing. Alas I live with three girls, two of them being really picky eaters. When we had the weekly basket running, we actually produced a lot of waste, because I alone was not able to consume its contents or plan dishes around it that they would consume.
Presumably based on the different lengths of growing cycles for different plants.
There may be more tomatoes ready for harvest this week, and more kale ready next week.
And customers may request more or less of certain things at different times of the year.
I’m sure they try to match harvest schedule and demand as closely as possible, but plants and customers don’t always operate in a perfectly predictable manner.
To add onto what the other commenter responded with, Lufa doesn’t just provide their own produce from their greenhouses. They also supply local produce and products from all around the region, including going as far as Lac St Jean region and Eastern Ontario for stuff that is made locally. Some is greenhouse, some is seasonal.
Outside of this, it sources citrus from small growers in Florida for example.
Lufa is operating on a quasi-subscription model. If you sign up with them, they have a weekly basket of veggies and fruit coming your way. You can either custom tailor this basket three days in advance or you can just let them send you whatever they have. The contents vary seasonally. Their greenhouses usually grow tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and kale derivatives, microgreens and herbs. You get charged on a per basket basis and the empty baskets have to be returned to them (usually they take empty ones at next week’s Drop-off).
With the weekly baskets they can gauge demand pretty well.
Anecdotal: If I lived alone or with another omnivore like me, I’d be happy to keep the baskets running either with whatever Lufa puts into it or with some micro managing. Alas I live with three girls, two of them being really picky eaters. When we had the weekly basket running, we actually produced a lot of waste, because I alone was not able to consume its contents or plan dishes around it that they would consume.
ok so its like the farmers market thing. Why do they vary though? I would think a greenhouse could grow anything year around.
Presumably based on the different lengths of growing cycles for different plants.
There may be more tomatoes ready for harvest this week, and more kale ready next week.
And customers may request more or less of certain things at different times of the year.
I’m sure they try to match harvest schedule and demand as closely as possible, but plants and customers don’t always operate in a perfectly predictable manner.
im sorta jelly now as it sounds pretty awsome. I hope the model spreads to toronto and then over to chicago.
To add onto what the other commenter responded with, Lufa doesn’t just provide their own produce from their greenhouses. They also supply local produce and products from all around the region, including going as far as Lac St Jean region and Eastern Ontario for stuff that is made locally. Some is greenhouse, some is seasonal.
Outside of this, it sources citrus from small growers in Florida for example.
ok. thats kinda a downer. I was like wow. they are growing all these neat things in the city.
I think the farm to table aspect is great though, even if they act as an intermediary.
They also have a minimal packaging philosophy. The stuff that comes in the crates is often either in paper bags or not packaged at all. So you get