Say Hello to Zero Pesticide, Farm to Home Veggies from Sakura Fresh

When life offers you the opportunity to get your hands on fresh produce – literally from farm to fork – you need to click “add to cart” as fast as you can. We did just that with Sakura Fresh, a brand new online vegetable delivery service in Bangalore {currently in its beta avatar},

Started by the good folks at First Agro, a zero pesticide farm located in Talkaad, by brothers Naveen MV and Nameet MV and their cousin K N Prasad, Sakura Fresh offers an incredible array of zero pesticide regular and exotic produce. Expect lettuces and greens, cucumber and courgettes, chillies, root crops such as carrots, radish and beetroot, herbs, tomatoes and more. And these are not your run-of-the-mill vegetables, though those are also available on the site, but herbs such as lemon and cinnamon basil, heirloom tomatoes, a selection of hot chillies – from the Xanadu Bird’s Eye pepper to the Amarillo Peruvian pepper and even a section dedicated to Japanese vegetables, herbs and edamame.

Once you sign up on the site, a detailed mail is sent out about the time and day from when you can start ordering and the day the delivery will happen. We received our order of wild rocket {so tough to get in Bangalore}, lemon basil, a mix of heirloom tomatoes of different breed, shape and size, Bird’s Eye chilli, baby carrots and baby spinach according tot he time promised. The produce is harvested and packaged only on order, so what you get is as good as it gets. We were advised by Naveen not to cook anything but to enjoy the produce fresh, helped along by a bit of cheese at the most.

We tossed a quick salad next day for a work lunch, of rocket, baby spinach, tomatoes, blanched baby carrots and basil with a simple dressing of garlic, olive oil, bird’s eye chilli with some sharp Cheddar. The result was as good as a salad we might have eaten in a fine dine establishment. So fresh and crunchy were the salad greens and vegetables, they could be enjoyed as is actually, even without a dressing, and were markedly different from the insipid, fertiliser plumped up produce you get in the market. The only hitch is that you need to order as soon as you receive an email about produce having been updated on the site. Otherwise you might have to deal with an “out of stock” situation.

Plans are on to introduce purees, jams and, sunflower, White Kashmir, cinnamon and lemon basil-flavoured honeys soon.

Where: Sign up for an invite to Sakura Fresh’s beta site here.

When: Once your place your order, the delivery will take about two days maximum. You can choose your time slot for delivery. A detailed email will also be sent about the slot timings for ordering as well as expected delivery. Only cash on delivery is accepted as of now.

Price: A minimum order of Rs 150 has to be placed with Rs 50 added for delivery. Free delivery for orders greater than INR 999.

Find First Agro on Facebook here.

Check out First Agro’s website here.