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A red-letter day for Jamaica Plain foodies

That is, of course, Wednesday, Nov. 2, when the new Whole Foods is scheduled to open - but also when a new service starts up to deliver Vermont farm goods to JP.

Farmers to You makes its first delivery from small-family, mostly organic farms in Vermont to the Boylston Congregational Church at Amory and Boylston streets for pickup by local customers. Unlike with CSAs, where customers pay a set amount per year for deliveries of whatever participating farms raise, Farmers to You customers place orders online by Sunday for Wednesday delivery to the church (home delivery by bicycle is also available).

JP joins Cambridge, Somerville, Beverly, Lexington and Arlington in the Farmers to You service area.

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Comments

The street name for the JP location is wrong on the FarmersToYou website .. but correct on the Google map that they point to.

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I should know that ...

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Embarassment of Riches.

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It continues to boggle my mind that Metro Pedal Power does not deliver to areas of Brookline that are west of the immediate areas around the Village or Coolidge Corner, but will go all the way down to Forest Hills.

That leaves out a whole lot of people in a densely populated area who would subscribe to something like having things delivered by bike to save the planet, out of the delivery area. There is no shortage of disposable income over there, either.

I think I just spotted a business opportunity.

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Perhaps there is no shortage of disposable income over there (in Brookline) because folks there are smart enough to realize that bicycle delivery, while trendy, has no significance on the environment and they save their disposable income for things more meaningful. Once the folks of JP realize this, they might be able to afford a move to Brookline.

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DHL makes extensive use of motorcycle and bicycle couriers in Europe because of traffic and no parking for trucks.

Here, delivery companies just run roughshod over parking rules, and the city tickets them with $20 fines, and the delivery companies consider it part of doing business.

Watch how fast bicycle cargo would take off if the city implemented an increasing-fine scheme. Say, second ticket costs $40, third ticket costs $80, fourth cost $160, and so on.

Until then, we'll have complete idiocy like double-parked semi-trailer-trucks on Centre Street unloading stuff for the Tedeschi market, making the road nearly impassable for the fire trucks a block up the street, and the 39 bus.

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Hi Issac,
We cover as much of Brookline as we can. As you mentioned, this includes Brookline Village, Coolidge Corner and beyond, and we are always looking for ways to expand into more of the city. However, wee are still a small struggling company, so we cannot afford to expand too quickly. Additionally, some areas, such as Route 9, Chestnut Hill and beyond the reservoir are not only far away from our headquarters and very hilly terrain but also some of those roads are very car-centric, and less friendly to bikes therefore are more risky for our riders (especially in winter).
A full map of our delivery area can be found here: http://metropedalpower.com/rates
If your address is outside our delivery area, I encourage you to contact us anyway as sometimes we can make exceptions for addresses close by. But at the very least, it is helpful for us to know where the demand is so we can plan our growth accordingly.
Thanks,
--
Wenzday Jane, Owner
Metro Pedal Power
Boston's human-powered transportation specialists.
Logistics, Hauling and Vehicle Services
http://metropedalpower.com
office: 617-776-3700
Working to build stronger, more resilient and self-reliant communities

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Did anyone check out their prices. *faint* This makes Whole Paycheck look cheap. I'm all for fresh veggies, but sheesh, this is way over priced.

7.75 for 5lb bag of Red Potatoes?!?

5.85 for a dozen of "Fertile Ungraded Natural Eggs"? REALLY. So if they weren't fed any medicated or chemically altered food, do they sh*t gold eggs? Not that these prices. Even the organic eggs at WF aren't this expensive..

I seriously wonder about the high prices and if its inflated 'just because'.

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I should also add that way back when I was a boy in 4H we decided to raise chickens. We had 48 chickens.

We averaged 24-36 eggs a DAY. We couldn't give them away fast enough. We never fed them chemically altered food or anything (except shells to make the egg shell stronger), and we could barely get a buck a dozen (when i sold them). Then again, it was 1985.

If I had known selling eggs could be so profitable, I might have not gone into IT...

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Search on organic eggs and you'll see that 1/2 a dozen are $3.39, so that's $6.78 for a dozen. Search on red potatoes and you'll see a 5 lb bag is $4.99--cheaper but not crazy cheaper. Not sure where the big difference is, unless you're buying all your groceries at Haymarket.

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Hey Cybah and other JP "foodies",

I work with Farmers To You and am very understanding of pricing sensitivity.

We have grown up with an expectation of inexpensive food. $1.99 eggs? Sure. Loss leader Thanksgiving turkeys at .99 a pound? No problem, let's get a 30 pounder. Strawberries in January at $2.99 a box. Gimme three! Cheap gas, industrial farming and massive agricultural subsidies have provided us with the economic model of food we have today...with dire consequences. Now whether one believes these are real consequences is like the arguments for climate change. If you don't believe the science, you can keep on keeping on with a myriad of options to continue the model.

If you do believe the science, there's an opportunity to do something different.

Someone has to pay for cheap food. That someone is the farmer (and the taxpayer via the farm bill). Under the current economic model eighteen cents of every food dollar goes to the farmer/grower. At Farmers To You, we give sixty five cents of every dollar direct to the farmer. (We also believe in transparency, I just stated what our gross margin is...) So that $5.85 dozen eggs translates into $3.80 to the farmer. Not unreasonable.

We do ask people to think differently about their relationship with food. We also understand that price is price to some consumers and that may never waiver. For those that want to have a more direct partnership with the people who grow their food and know where it comes from, Farmers To You offers an alternative.

There is a reason why some states want to make it a crime to film animal slaughter.

Thank you for the opportunity and forum to discuss this.

Will Forest
Farmers To You

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there would ever be such a thing as a "Jamaica Plain foodie"! And I've lived here since for over 20 years!

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