Some of you are familiar with Azure Standard. I was on the fence for a long time about ordering from them. When we lived in Texas, there was a drop location not quite two hours from where we were but it was an usually an evening drop and neither of us drive after dark so I never did it. Even when we got here, I hesitated for a while. Some of their items are a bit more expensive than grocery store items but produce is in line with farmers’ market prices. Azure does add a percentage to the total for the transportation costs so, for me, 8.25% is added to my total.
If you have never ordered from them and are interested, you can go to their website and check things out. If you want to know if there’s a drop location near you, here’s a site where you can put in your zip code and get the nearest location. It isn’t always right so if there isn’t one near you, it might be good to call them. The one they show near me isn’t the closest one.
I will usually buy almost every month except I don’t order orders to be delivered November (because it usually arrives too close to Thanksgiving), or December – February because of the weather. We try not to go out in the snow and especially ice and if you order, you HAVE to be there to pick up the order.
I don’t buy a lot of produce from them, mainly because I grow some of ours and have several local folks from the farmers’ market that I like to buy from. I do buy potatoes and carrots, I do buy all of my grains, bulk spices, some canned goods from them. I have never been disappointed in anything from them.
If you go to the Azure website, and find your drop location, you’ll see something like this:
This is my info. Yesterday was my cut off for ordering for the August drop. My next cut off is going to be 27 days from now. All we know about pickup time is that it will be the week of September 22. It could be on a Saturday, a Sunday, Thanksgiving Day (not in September!). It could be at 8 a.m.. or at 5 p.m. or any other time. There are 18 wheelers that have set routes and they go from place to place delivering. Except on the rare (never had it happen since I’ve been using Azure but I’ve heard of it happening) occasions when a truck breaks down or is involved in an accident, they are usually a few minutes early and in the 2-1/2 years I’ve been ordering, I think they’ve been late once and it was a mixup on scheduling.
Here’s my order for August order. A few explanations first:
- The Azure Market Organics Peanut Butter – We love this one and it’s hard to get! It can be ordered by the case (12) a 5 pound tub or individual jars. I wanted a case but I knew they were likely to run out before my order shipped so I ordered three individual jars. Before my order was packed, they did run out of the cases AND the individual jars so I won’t be getting that, short of a more arriving before my order gets packed.
- The Once Again Nut Butter Tahini Butter – Same as the peanut butter. It was low in stock so I ordered a case and 3 individual jars. In the event the case doesn’t ship, at least we’ll have three jars.
- The Azure canning jars are my favorite. I don’t think Ball makes the 1-1/2 pint jars and those have become my favorite. For the two of us, meat in the 1-1/2 pint jars is enough for a meal and some leftover for Vince to have a snack or a sandwich the next day. Any jars I need from now on, though I shouldn’t need many, will come from Azure. I also ordered pints because I use a lot of those too.
- The calcium carbonate powder is for the garden. I need to work on my beds before next spring.
That’s it for this month – Tahini butter, peanut butter (maybe), jars and calcium for the garden.
