Company delivers organic items to your door
By B.C. Manion
Tampa Bay Organics operates on a simple premise.
People want to eat healthy, but they don’t have time to track down the good fruits and vegetables that they need.
So this Lutz-based company will do that job for them and will deliver the fresh fruits and veggies wherever the customer wants them – their front door, back porch, business, even their neighbor’s house.
It’s a customer-driven business, said Jessica Papesh, the marketing director of the company, located on the west side of US 41, just south of SR 54.
The company makes deliveries once a week in a market area that stretches from Clearwater to Plant City, Ruskin to Shady Hills.
The service area will continue to expand as the service grows, Papesh said.
Customers choose how often they want deliveries and decide whether they want a small, medium or large box of produce. They also select whether they want all veggies, all fruit, or a combination. The prices are $29.50 for a small box; $38 for a medium box; and $47.50 for a large box.
They can indicate if there’s a fruit or vegetable that they never want, and they can make up to three substitutions for items in every delivery, Papesh said.
“These days, people want exactly what they want, and I don’t blame them,” said Al Tizer, one of the company’s owners.
The company guarantees the quality of its produce.
“You don’t get charged until the day after your delivery, so we can make sure everything makes it to you safe and sound,” Papesh said.
Tizer said he’s not aware of any other business in the Tampa Bay region that provides a home delivery service for organic produce.
The service provides a convenient source of fresh organics.
“The fact that it’s brought to your doorstep, it just can’t be beat,” Papesh said.
“People want to save time. When you’re busy and you want to lead a healthy lifestyle, it’s difficult. It’s hard to find the time to eat healthy. Especially, if you have a family, you want to keep healthy food in the house. You won’t find the variety of food that we have in a grocery store.
“You’d find yourself going to many stores and spending countless hours and still not being able to find what we have,” Papesh said.
“We just want to make it very, very easy for people,” Tizer said.
Besides having access to a variety of organic fruits and vegetables, patrons can rest assured that they’re getting genuine organics, Papesh said.
“We’re strictly organic. All of the farms and distributors that we use are 100 percent certified USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) organic. So, our customers know that everything they’re getting is organic, and that comes with the labels on each of the individual items,” she said.
“We try to buy local as much as possible,” Papesh said.
During the local growing season, the company will buy as much local produce as possible, Papesh said. At other times, they buy from distributors of organic produce.
“Our menu varies on a weekly basis,” Papesh said.
Last week’s small fruit and veggie combo box, for instance, include oranges, a cucumber, a mango, spinach, carrots, apples, corn and grapes.
“We take suggestions from our customers and we try to keep a good variety in the boxes. “We’ve got some staple items, like apples, bananas, we’ll do every week. We’ll always do a leafy green.
“We try to do like one item that you may not necessarily buy all of the time at the grocery store. Keep it fresh for the customer. If we ever do something that you may not have heard of, or you’ve never bought, then we’ll put something in our email that goes out, like try this recipe, or cook it like this, store it like this,” Papesh said.
The idea is to keep customers informed and to do the legwork for them, she said.
The company makes its deliveries on Tuesdays, at the moment. As it grows, it plans to increase its deliveries.
“We ask that everyone leave a cooler out and some ice packs, just to keep it as fresh and crisp as possible. We do put an ice pack in with the delivery.”
The company also has a website that is very easy to use, Papesh said. It was developed by Tizer’s business partner, Wayne Pierson, who lives in California.
For more information about Tampa Bay Organics, visit www.tampabayorganics.com, call (813) 949-1112 or email
