The Wonkers, Angus Simms and Katie Jackson. Photo / Rosalie Willis
The Wonkers, Angus Simms and Katie Jackson. Photo / Rosalie Willis
When Wellington went to alert level 2 earlier this year, The Wonky Box saved the day for many fruit and vegetable growers from the Kāpiti and Horowhenua by collecting the harvested produce and distributing it in produce boxes to customers throughout the wider Wellington region.
Started out of a desire to see less wastage and be fairer to the growers, customers and the planet, The Wonky Box is a combination of a food rescue and a meal kit business.
Now, in level 4 lockdown, The Wonky Box has had a drastic increase in orders as it expands to inner-city Wellington for the week, with calls from many growers to take as much produce as it can off their hands.
Orders are increasing drastically during lockdown for Angus Simms and Katie Jackson's Wonky Boxes.
"Many growers have reached out to us since the announcement on Tuesday," The Wonky Box co-owner Angus Simms said.
"Although it's a three-day lockdown, the chances are it's probably going to go further, and many markets aren't open in level 2 either.
"So even if we go back down in levels, the chances are they aren't going to be open for a few weeks."
The boxes are normally delivered on a subscription basis, with options available for how frequently you want it, however this week they have opened up deliveries for one-off deliveries.
With many growers harvesting early midweek for the weekend markets in the wider Wellington region, a lot of produce is already picked.
"They had been harvesting the weekends produce already and as a result we've got even more of an offset to try and sell.
"With all the chaos at the supermarkets, we decided to turn on the postcodes for inner-city Wellington and try our best to manage delivering to more people."
Starting by talking to their packaging suppliers to make sure they could get enough boxes, Angus and Katie decided they could offer an extra 100 boxes to families in the CBD.
"Although we're an essential service, that was all we thought we could manage as our bubble – me, Katie and our flatmate."
"We've had offers from friends to help, but at the moment we're keeping it safe and doing the delivery ourselves."
Angus, Katie and their flatmate are sorting orders, picking up produce from growers, driving it down to Wellington, packing it into boxes and doing deliveries along with running the website and finances, enabling customers to have a fresh box of fruit and vegetables, packed with a number of staples and surprise options each week, of normal and wonky fruit and vegetables.
The Wonky Box is a new start-up in Wellington saving excess and misshapen produce that would otherwise be wasted.
Posting on social media that they were opening to the Wellington CBD for a one-off box this week Angus said "we sold out 100 boxes in the space of ten minutes, it was crazy".
"Our growers still have more produce than we can handle but we are able to save some of it that would be going to waste, we are helping to a certain degree."
Angus and Katie are working on opening up additional postcodes in the city, the Kāpiti Coast and are in discussions with the Sustainability Trust about using one of the electric vans, and are also in discussions with independent couriers working between Kāpiti and Wellington to reach more homes.
• Keep checking www.wonkybox.nz over the next few weeks to see if they expand delivery to your area.
