Wk 24 | Summer 6 CSA Newsletter Tues | Aug 13
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Call/text Robin at 708-370-8017 if you have questions about your delivery tonight. |
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Notes from Chris
We've spent a lot of time this past week talking amongst ourselves and thinking about eggplant quality, and about the bigger question of what and how much we put in the box. Probably for reasons related to moisture in the harvested eggplant bins (similar to the problem we had with mesclun and lettuce earlier this year), we've had premature  spoilage on some our eggplant this year. Not sure how many people have been affected, but it's probably around 10-20% of customers, which represents 50-100 people. My hope is that many of you are saying, What eggplant probem?
We became aware of the issue a couple weeks ago, and have not been able to tell ahead of time which eggplant will suffer. The relative moisture level in bins of eggplant gave us some clues as to which fruits would store best/go bad first, but other factors such as variety, fruit size/maturity, and harvest conditions play a role as well.
So there is then the dilemma of what to do when you've got a crop that is predominantly good, but there are a few bad ones in there somewhere, and you don't know where they are or will appear. Even without the eggplant, your boxes have been well over value lately--the biggest boxes we've ever packed consistently, for a few weeks in a row now. (Check out the Weekly Box Values on our website.) We certainly don't need more value to be fair to anyone. But we've got this mostly beautiful eggplant that many people would like, and that would push the box further over value. It's hard to throw it all away when we know it's mostly good, and that, in effect, we're not charging people for it as the boxes are already significantly over value.
So...we choose to put it into the box. Here we have this huge box, with the vast majority of it in excellent shape, and now we have this eggplant, some of which goes bad and upsets customers. So we now need to replace the eggplants that spoil, and do yet more work beyond the value we're charging. It is a hard choice for sure.
I'd love to hear from anyone who's got the time and an interest in responding. I get into arguments with Robin (our Chicago coordinator and CSA Queen) about this topic. She nearly always takes the high road to customer service and does almost whatever people ask. That behavior kicked my ass years ago, so I listen, but I don't assume that customers are always right, or maybe right for us, or for a CSA.
We have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe we should throw the eggplant out (we threw out a few hundred pounds of harvested eggplant yesterday, many of them in excellent shape, but in the same bin as some bad fruit, so we threw it out anyway) and have the goal be to have the highest percentage of high integrity produce. So far, I've figured that the combination of our quality and quantity have made it the right thing to do to give customers the 85% chance that they'll also get nice eggplant on top of their already over-packed box.
Please know when you read this that we don't know until after it's happened that a crop started to go bad. We do not knowingly pack eggplant that has rotted or that has rotting spots. We didn't know about the eggplant problem until after it was delivered and we received feedback. We went back and looked in storage to see if we could deduce the problem, and excess moisture is a likely culprit. We'll make sure to vent our storage containers better, especially when they are first put into the cooler. Eggplant do not like 100% humidity or very cold storage, so when you get them, put them in the least cold area of your refrigerator, and in a paper bag rather than plastic.
Otherwise, the summer box is overflowing as usual. Let us know how we did this week with the eggplant--and anything else. I can't overstate it: we really do value your feedback, even when it's difficult to hear. -- Chris
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Questions?
Call Robin (in Chicago), 708-370-8017 | Chris (farmer/owner), 608-712-1585
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Click links below for info
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WHAT'S COOKIN'
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Thyme is such a versatile herb--use it with almost any meat or vegetable. Great with potatoes, carrots, eggplant, you name it. Use it now and keep some for later with this herb-freezing method. It works best with sturdier herbs like thyme, rosemary, oregano and sage.
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We'll be updating it more often as more variety comes available
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