For the last three years I have been sub­scribed to the Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture (CSA) pro­gram. I pay a month­ly sub­scrip­tion and every week I col­lect a bas­ket of as­sort­ed fruits and veg­eta­bles. This way, I en­sure that I have fresh pro­duce on hand and be­cause I don’t like to waste, I make sure I eat it all. It has al­so helped me to ex­pand the va­ri­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles that I eat. For ex­am­ple, I am not a huge fan of caraille, but when it is in my week­ly bas­ket, I will eat it or juice it. The best part for me is that I can sleep in on Sat­ur­day morn­ings and I don’t have to head to the mar­ket ear­ly as my goods are al­ready set aside.

In the last few years, many oth­er pro­duce sub­scrip­tion and de­liv­ery ser­vices have popped up as peo­ple val­ue the ease and con­ve­nience. Here are somede­tails on these op­tions be­low:

Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz

Green Mar­ket’s CSA sup­ports lo­cal farm­ers who grow healthy food by link­ing them to a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple who want to con­sume healthy food. Sub­scribers ben­e­fit from prices that do not in­clude the mid­dle­man markup, while the farm­ers re­tain the mark-up at­tached to us­ing or­gan­ic prac­tices. Bas­kets range from $450-$650 a month and can be col­lect­ed on Sat­ur­days in San­ta Cruz.

D’ Mar­ket Movers

D' Mar­ket Movers Ltd is the first on­line dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny of green gro­cer items through­out Trinidad & To­ba­go. They fo­cus on farm to ta­ble ini­tia­tives that se­cure the fresh­est, lo­cal prod­ucts and bring them di­rect­ly to your door. D’ Mar­ket Movers al­so has a frozen pa­paya & pineap­ple brand, Farm & Func­tion, al­so proud­ly grown in T&T. Or­ders must be at least $90 and de­liv­ery is avail­able through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. They al­so put to­geth­er a box of as­sort­ed fruits and veg­eta­bles for $199-$220.

Healthy Mar­ket

Healthy Mar­ket pro­vides fresh fruit and veg­gie box­es at mar­ket prices. Prices range from $50 to $295. They al­so pro­vide healthy meal prep op­tions such as smooth­ie bags, fruit cups and ba­by food. De­liv­ery is avail­able through­out Trinidad for a $45 fee.

Al­liance of Rur­al Com­mu­ni­ties of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ARC)

The ARC Sup­port­ing Agri­cul­tur­al Com­mu­ni­ties (ARC SAC) of­fers lo­cal or­gan­ic pro­duce de­liv­ered to your home or of­fice every fort­night from com­mu­ni­ties such as Matelot, Cushe and Bras­so Seco. Pro­duce box­es are $200 each and in­clude a wide va­ri­ety of lo­cal­ly har­vest­ed fruits and veg­eta­bles.

The Promise Bas­ket

The Promise Bas­ket is a mem­ber­ship pro­gram that al­lows per­sons to save mon­ey while get­ting ba­sic food items that con­sist of pro­duce (fruits and veg­eta­bles) with the op­tions to in­clude dry goods (such as flour, rice and dried beans) and chick­en or fish. There is an an­nu­al sub­scrip­tion of $200 plus the cost of the bas­ket which is $200. Mem­bers can pur­chase up to three bas­kets a month. Bas­kets can be picked up or de­liv­ered through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Fruve TT

Fruve pro­vides a wide va­ri­ety of lo­cal fruits and veg­eta­bles com­pli­ment­ed by a few in­ter­na­tion­al­ly grown pro­duce. Their fruits and veg­eta­bles are care­ful­ly se­lect­ed to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble qual­i­ty. Cus­tomers or­der from a list of avail­able pro­duce and de­liv­ery is avail­able through­out the East-West cor­ri­dor and to Ch­agua­nas.