Frequently Asked Questions
Here you’ll find the answers to the questions we’re often asked. If you can’t find the answers you need below, please
contact us.
We have laid out below examples of fruits and vegetables that may be included in our weekly food basket program in 2021
Click here for a more detailed list. Most of this food will be produced at one of our farms, but we also work with local partners who share our values.
Most Popular Questions
You can change your delivery address from ‘Your Account’, under ‘Delivery details’. The option won’t be available if you have debt or credit on your account, a delivery on its way, or a pause on your orders. In these cases, ‘Your Account’ will direct you to send us a message on webchat.
You can change the quantity and frequency of your items by looking at the ‘Next delivery’ section on every page (down the right hand side, or at the top of the screen if you’re on mobile) and selecting ‘Change’ on an item.
If you have ordered the item as a one-off in your next delivery, you can use the +/- buttons to change the quantity. Setting this value to zero will remove the item from your next delivery.
If the item is in your regular order, on-screen instructions will pop up with two sections. The top section is your regular order. Underneath that is an option to ‘Edit Next Delivery only’.
If you want to remove the item from all future orders, use the top +/-buttons to change the quantity in your regular order. If you want you want to change the quantity in your next delivery only, click ‘Edit Next Delivery only’. There you can use the +/- buttons to change the quantity in your next delivery. Setting this value to zero will remove the item from your next delivery and not affect your regular order.
Selecting “Confirm” will save any changes made to your order.
We very rarely miss a delivery, so don’t panic if it’s a bit later than usual. If it’s very late, please ring your local veg team (find their details in ‘Your account’, or call us at the farm. We’ll find out what has happened and try to put it right.
Coronavirus & Current Availability
Coronavirus is not considered a food safety issue by the Food Standards Agency or the EFSA (European Food Standards Authority), and is very unlikely to be spread via food or packaging.
Our main focus is on limiting the risk of spreading the virus through human contact. If your delivery is after 8am your driver will knock on your door to let you know the box has arrived and then leave your box in a safe place, following any delivery instructions.
Please help us by leaving empty boxes where we can pick it up without human contact. If there are any special requirement for either the delivery or social distancing please head to Your account and click ‘Edit delivery notes’.
The #1 priority for Riverford is the health and wellbeing of co-owners, and we have followed stringent social distancing and hygiene measures since the start of the outbreak. These include:
- COVID-secure risk assessments, which are kept under regular review.
- Swift reporting of symptoms, clear explanations of government guidance and regular communications to all co-owners.
- Supplementary COVID tests have been secured to help ensure rapid testing in the event of any positive case. *Social distancing was implemented immediately across all sites, including re-organising our production areas to reduce face-to-face working, installing Perspex screens where 2m was not achievable, staggering breaks, and regular cleaning of points of hand contact such as machine controls, door handles and pallet truck handles.
- As many co-owners as possible are working from home, to ensure the capacity of co-owners on the farm is kept below 35%.
- Face coverings are obligatory in our farm and production teams.
- We are temperature screening all business-critical visitors and contractors to our farms and all co-owners at our butchery.
- We have installed 2m floor markings across the site, created one-way systems through canteens, added new signage, and screens between hand basins.
- We have removed all cash handling at the canteen facilities.
- No external visitors have been authorised to visit our sites except for business or safety critical purposes.
- All co-owners working in on-site teams are being tested twice weekly for COVID-19, giving us a constantly moving picture of any positive cases.
Delivery
No – delivery is always free. All you need to do is meet our minimum spend. If you are buying any of our set boxes (fruit and veg, meat or recipe boxes), then there is no minimum spend. If you prefer to build your own box, there’s a minimum spend of just $15 (without meat). To build your own meat box, the minimum meat order is $15; once your meat order reaches $15, you can add any number of non-meat items.
At the bottom of the ‘Next delivery’ section you will see a link to ‘Pause deliveries’. Simply choose the dates you want to start and finish the pause. We’ll email you five days before your orders are due to restart.
If you want to change or stop a pause that you have set for your next delivery, just select ‘Unpause now’. If the pause is scheduled to start on a future date, select ‘Edit pause’ at the bottom of your ‘Next delivery’ list.
If you’re moving house, you can change your delivery address from Your Account, under ‘Delivery details’. The option won’t be available if you have debt or credit on your account, a delivery on its way, or a pause on your orders. We may also pause this option at times when we’re coordinating high numbers of deliveries, such as Christmas. In these cases, ‘Your Account’ will direct you to send us a message on Live Chat.
To find out what to return to us for reuse, and how to dispose of the rest of your packaging responsibly, visit our Packaging page.
We deliver from quite early in the morning up until dinner time on your delivery day. To minimise food miles, our local veg teams (we never use couriers) deliver to everyone in an area on a set day once a week, calculating their routes to maximise efficiency. Delivery is often at a similar time each week – traffic and weather permitting!
You don’t need to be at home – more than 70% of our customers are out when we deliver. Our driver will knock on your door to let you know you delivery has arrived (if it’s after 8am); please let us know in your delivery instructions if you’d rather we didn’t knock.
You can also use the delivery instructions to let your driver know where to leave your box if you’re not in. We’re used to all sorts of requests. This could be anything from leaving your box with a neighbour or in a shed/garage, to tucking it under a hedge, behind a dustbin or under upturned recycling boxes.
We very rarely miss a delivery, so don’t panic if it’s a bit later than usual. If it’s very late, get in touch via Live Chat on our website or call us at the farm on +1 01837 871400 and we’ll find out what has happened.
Box Information
We post box contents on the website every Friday. We also email every week telling you what’s on the way, so you can check whether you’d like to stick with your chosen box, swap to another, or add any extras. We try very hard to stick to the planned contents, but the unpredictability of nature means that we must occasionally make last-minute changes.
Every week, we list what we’re planning to put in all our veg boxes for the next week, to help you choose which to order. We try our very best to deliver what we’ve planned – but with fresh organic produce, sometimes things can change at the last moment. Bad weather, crop damage; lots of things can mean that we sometimes have to swap an item from your box.
Wherever possible, we try to choose a fruit or veg that can play a similar role in your kitchen to the one replaced (a salad veg for a salad veg, for example). We also alert you to the swap in your box – either on a little note of its own, or highlighted on the list of veg attached to your farm newsletter, depending on the box.
If you’re not happy with an item that’s been swapped in your box, please do get in touch with our team at the farm and let us know.
Almost everything has a minimum of 5 days’ shelf life, but it depends on the product and how we’ve packaged it. Everything comes labelled with a use-by date for you to follow. We also recommend you freeze any meat you won’t be eating within a couple of days, especially mince, sausages, and burgers. It will stay very tender and flavourful after defrosting.