We sell food
We grow food… We sell food… We help you grow…
Stall and box scheme
Join Organiclea’s box scheme or visit the market stall at the Hornbeam Centre and get fresh organic fruit and vegetables every week.
With the midweek box scheme, you pay around £5 or £10 a week and get your shopping done for you! Your bag of good quality, fresh organic vegetables will be available for pick up every Wednesday afternoon at the Hornbeam Centre, 458 Hoe Street (near the Bakers Arms junction). Choose the size of fruit or vegetable bag that suits you. There are also late pick-up arrangements and delivery.
The market stall outside the Hornbeam Centre on Saturdays (10am-3pm) sells organic and ultra-local sustainably grown fruit and vegetables, plus homemade bread, jams and preserves, and refills of household cleaning products.
It’s a buzzing space, where buying fresh produce is an enjoyable activity and where information about food can be freely shared.
The produce we sell comes from:
- Soil Association certified organic farms in East Anglia and their partners in Europe
- Ultra-local London growers sharing their surplus through our Cropshare scheme
- Our own Hawkwood site in Chingford
Healthy Start vouchers can be used to buy fruit and vegetables at the stall or box scheme.
Hawkwood Farm Stall
The farm stall at our Hawkwood site is open on Wednesdays (3.30-6.30) and Thursdays (8.30-5.30) and on open days (last Sunday of the month). Pop in for carrots, onions and potatoes, plus a small range of seasonal vegetables and fruit harvested direct from the Hawkwood growing site. All organically grown at Hawkwood or provided by a small organic farmer that we work with in the East of England. The farm stall is also a pick up point for the box scheme so if you live locally you can get your weekly fruit and veg from here!
Hornbeam Café
Let someone else do the cooking! The Hornbeam café serves healthy, tasty vegetarian meals using the same local and ultra-local produce. It’s a friendly space with information about local activities and there is a varied menu of seasonally-inspired main meals plus delicious cakes, juices and fairtrade teas and coffee. The café is open Wednesday to Saturday 10am-5pm, and can also supply catering for your meetings at the Hornbeam Centre or other local events.
> this week’s menu and catering information
How we sell
Beyond our own market stalls and box scheme and the Hornbeam cafe we have also developed connections with a range of other restaurants, cafes and markets who are excited to be part of a locally-grown community food system… more details here.
Cropshare
The Cropshare scheme allows local gardeners and allotment holders to sell their surplus fruit and vegetables legally through our box scheme and market stall. Growers sign up to the Wholesome Food Association principles of food production – a low cost alternative to organic certification for small scale growers in a local region.
> more details in our cropshare guide
> background paper on the myth and reality of selling allotment surplus
Scrumping
For several years we have been making good use of surplus fruit in the borough, by picking from street trees and in gardens where the residents are unable to pick or make use of all the fruit. Mainly apples and pears but also plums, cherries, figs, grapes, nuts and soft fruits too.
We bring small teams of pickers to local residents who want help harvesting the fruit from their trees. We offer them 25% of the fruit collected and distribute the rest as fruit, jams, pickles and juice through the market stall and café at the Hornbeam Centre. Any surplus raised is put back into the community projects. Come along to the Hornbeam on a Saturday in September and October to see the apple press in action.
If you have more fruit than you can handle, please let us know. Contact us when your trees are ready for picking – call 020 8558 6880 or email info@organiclea.org.uk
Or come to the Hornbeam Centre to borrow our picking tools and bring the fruit along yourself.
