Urban Harvest, the ground-breaking on-line fresh food market, is becoming
something of a phenomenon. The
brainchild of Jo Freeman, a Wellington law professional and busy mother, who
like many people found sourcing and buying fresh, quality produce a bit of a
logistical and time management challenge, Urban Harvest is the modern,
convenient and guaranteed way of obtaining quality seasonal produce and artisan
food direct from local suppliers and have it delivered to your door in
Wellington city. There have been feature
articles on Urban Harvest in the DominionPost and Cuisine magazine, signalling
its popular and successful format.
The on-line shop features around 50 food producers from the lower North
Island and top of the South Island, from Hawke’s Bay and Taupo, to Horowhenua,
Wairarapa, Wellington and Blenheim.
Suppliers include orchardists, a fisherman, dairy farmers, bakers,
butchers, organic market gardeners, chocolatiers, juice-makers and
coffee-roasters. There are close to
1,000 purchasable items, and the supplier and product list keeps on growing.
Orders placed on the Urban Harvest website are delivered to homes and
offices in Wellington
city on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, following specified cut-off times, to
ensure the delivery of the produce as fresh possible. Urban Harvest does not hold stock of
perishable food; it is ordered in fresh as customers place their orders. The suppliers pick, bake, make or catch the
food then send it in to Wellington
for the order. The catch-line “Get fresh
with the locals” rings true!
www.urbanharvest.co.nz is worth visiting even if you don’t need to order
anything straight away. The background
to the producers is inspirational and the descriptions of the products are
mouth-watering. Excellent ideas and
recipes are aired in the blog. One of
the features is a weekly, seasonally-based recipe by Al Brown of Logan-Brown
fame. His recipes utilize ingredients
obtainable from Urban Harvest (of course) and the method is clearly and simply
explained. Regional Wines & Spirits
has a role here with a wine match from Raymond and a beer match from Kieran
(these being available from www.regionalwines.co.nz, of course!)
This week’s recipe (published on 15 June) is Smoked kahawai fishcakes with
Wakelin House lemon and dill aioli. The
wine match is Mount Edward Central Otago Chardonnay 2008 and the beer match 8
Wired ‘Rewired’ Brown Ale. Yum yum!
We recommend you visit www.urbanharvest.co.nz to see the range of
excellent produce and sign up for the email newsletter. When you order, you’ll be pleasantly
surprised how easy it all is!
Click here to read Kieran our beer specialist’s thoughts on Urban Harvest.