Once considered to be the preserve of "hippies" and city-dwelling "yummy-Mummy" types anxious to give their offspring a taste of fresh country produce, vegetable box schemes are springing up across Yorkshire as demand soars.

These days the old stereotypical images of the regular vegetable box scheme customer are some way off the mark. A wider mix of people than ever before
are shunning the supermarket in favour of local suppliers of fruit, vegetables, dairy products, meat and eggs. This is due, at least in part, to the likes of celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who have helped to encourage wider public debate about the origins and quality of
the food that we eat, as well as the methods used to produce it.

Graham Brooks of the Arthur Street Trading Company delivers about 80 boxes of local, seasonal and mainly organic produce each week to homes in Hull and the surrounding area.

It's doing so well he fears that the big boys will try to follow suit.

"The danger is that the big supermarkets will move in and tie farmers to a fixed price that we just can't compete with," says Graham.

"We want to keep the money in the local economy and, although we simply can't sell as cheaply as the supermarkets, we can support small-scale local producers."

Graham and his team make local deliveries using a solar-powered milk float to keep the impact on the environment to a minimum, and have diversified the business to include environmentally-friendly cleaning products and wholefoods among the goods that they deliver to their customers' doors.

The fact that Graham's vegetable box scheme is thriving in a area like Hull, where incomes tend to be lower than the national average and people have less money to spend on their weekly food shop, is further evidence that they are now mainstream.

It's part of a shift away from buying pre-packaged fruit and vegetables from a supermarket that have been flown half way around
the world.

Rob McGregor of the Organic Farm at Leeming Bar in North Yorkshire gives a chuckle when asked about the image of the typical vegetable box schemes and their customers. "In the early days our organic vegetable boxes appealed mainly to the 'right-on' types as you might expect," he says.

"However, as the business has grown, we've found it's become much more of a mainstream option and we now have a broad cross-section of customers."

Since Rob and his wife, Elaine, launched their business in 1998, they have gone from selling 50 to 100 boxes per year to supplying hundreds of boxes every month across Yorkshire
and beyond.

Customers include companies who offer discounted vegetable boxes to their staff to encourage healthy eating and university students living in shared houses or halls of residence, who club together to buy a box. The majority of Rob's vegetable boxes are now bought by individual families on a regular basis.

Helen Edwards, a busy working mother from York, receives a weekly delivery of organic fruit and vegetables from the Richmond-based Farm Around North because she finds it so convenient.

"After receiving a mailshot from Farm Around, we decided to trial it for a couple of weeks and now we take a delivery of fruit and vegetables each week," she says. "I work full-time so I wouldn't get the opportunity to buy fresh, seasonal, organic produce otherwise.

"They always send you basics, such as carrots, onions and potatoes, but the other items vary according to what's in season. You often get tips on how best to prepare certain vegetables and recipes to help with planning meals. I recently received a living salad, which comes in a pot and lasts longer because you pick it when you need it."

Having fresh produce delivered is undoubtedly convenient, but some shoppers don't like the idea of not knowing exactly what will arrive and prefer to select their own food.

Sue Gibson, a mother of two from North Newbald in East Yorkshire, says: "I think vegetable boxes are a good idea for pensioners or mums with very young children who struggle to get to the supermarket. But I like to select my fruit and vegetables by hand, varying my selections from week to week depending on what's in season, what's on offer and what menu I have in mind for the week ahead."

To address this issue, a number of firms providing vegetable boxes now allow customers to select the contents for themselves using a list on their websites.

Others, including Farm Around North, advertise the contents of their vegetable boxes on their websites on a weekly basis so that customers know what they can expect to receive.

For his operation, Rob McGregor has also joined forces with a number of local organic food producers to extend the range of products on offer through his box scheme to include meat, dairy products and eggs.

To make the business more sustainable, a large number of the boxes are distributed through a network of health food shops across the region.

While Rob welcomes the growing interest among consumers in where their food comes from, he believes that the "local produce" tag can be misleading. "There is confusion around the 'local' side of things because it's no guarantee of quality or high standards of welfare. For example, there could be a pork producer just down the road from me producing meat of a much lower quality using intensive farming methods. That's a major issue that is simply not spoken about and still needs to be addressed."

Delvering the goods

The Arthur Street Trading Company supplies a range of standard seasonal vegetable boxes, which are priced at £6 for small, £8 for medium, £10 for large and £13 for extra large. Although there is no guarantee of exactly what will be in each box, at the moment the medium-sized boxes are likely to contain seven or eight different items, such as potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips, kale, leeks, mushrooms and cabbage. There is also a range of fruit boxes, varying in price from £6 to £20, and a juicing box for £14. Visit www.arthurs organics.com to find out more.

The Organic Farm supplies standard vegetable boxes in a range of sizes, from small to extra, extra large at prices ranging from £7 to £25. It also supplies small (£7), medium (£10.50) and large (£14) fruit boxes, as well as and small (£9.50) and large (£12.50) salad boxes. Customers can also put together their own "choice" box by selecting items from the shopping list on the website at www. theorganicfarm.co.uk/

Standard vegetable boxes from Farm Around North cost from £8 to £17.50. Visit the website to see what's on offer this week www.farmaround north.co.uk

Visit www.vegbox recipes.co.uk to find a vegetable box scheme in
your area.