Bountiful Basket Conventional Basket of Produce for $15

It was another week where we purchased another Bountiful Basket.  We have been getting baskets for several months now – but we have been spending $25 for the 100% Certified Organic Baskets of produce and have been VERY impressed by the selection, quality and value.

This week – we decided to order the conventional basket for $15.  This was our first time actually ordering a conventional basket.  We wanted to see the difference in the selection, quality and value.

First, we got things that we LOVE and USE (this is important as you never know what you are going to get in your basket)! Here is a picture of what we got:

• 7 ears of corn
• 1 small watermelon
• 1 Pineapple
• 1/2 bag of grapes
• Yukon Gold Potatoes 5lb. bag
• 1 head of cauliflower (the green ones so that will be fun!)
• 6 bananas
• 3 English cucumbers
• 4 Nectarines
• 3 Peaches
• 2 Tomatoes
• 8 Plums
• 1 head of Romain lettuce

So here’s our scoop and take on our first experience with this conventional basket: 1. The quality and freshness is great! 2. We are not sure if it really came out to be that great of a value compared to buying the in the grocery store at the current “in season” prices.  After glancing at all of it, we are relatively confident that we would have been able to get all of this in the grocery store for around $15.  Ears of corn are selling for around .10 in many locations, bananas at around .49 lb. grapes for .99 .lb, Romaine lettuce at $1.78 a head for a few prices we can find right off hand.

We are planning to start doing store comparisons on many products and stores (if you would like to offer your ideas – head over to The Thrifty Couple on Facebook and leave your thoughts to help us in determining what and where we start making price comparisons), but I think that we are going to compare the last few weeks of the organic baskets and this week’s conventional basket and try to get some idea of how good of a value it is.  In the meantime, we will be sticking to our Organic basket of produce for $25 as we are very confident that this is a much better value for the price and the bonus is that it is 100% certified organic! We would love to know your thoughts on the conventional vs. organic basket of produce if you have purchased either through a produce co-op or even in the grocery store! We do know of another friend who has purchased the conventional basket and was very pleased – so maybe it was an off week as far as the value.

To see our past Organic Produce Co-Op Bountiful Basket purchases – see our previous posts from this list HERE.