There's one not far from me, so I may look into it. Well, 20 min... far enough that "drove 40 minutes to pick up local produce" starts to sound dumb, though. I'm in central France.
But in context -- it's not hard to find local produce, including plenty of local, organic produce, without relying on a specially-organized meetup point. The closest large town to where I live has about 8K people; that's big enough for them to have a (smallish) dedicated organic/specialty grocery store, and street markets every weekend, year-round, with a few organic farms selling their produce there.
If I drive into Limoges, there are several large grocery stores that sell only organic produce, and highlight local produce.
These are all noticeably more expensive than shopping at a regular Super-U or Casino/Geant (big chains), but the selection and quality is quite good.
I'll check into the Ruche near here to see what it's like; but if it's the same farmers we can buy from directly at the weekend market, I'm not sure I see the point.
Edit: "276 Membres"... Huh -- that's significant. Oddly, the producers include a "Safranier", i.e., a saffron farmer. I didn't think that could even grow here.
But in context -- it's not hard to find local produce, including plenty of local, organic produce, without relying on a specially-organized meetup point. The closest large town to where I live has about 8K people; that's big enough for them to have a (smallish) dedicated organic/specialty grocery store, and street markets every weekend, year-round, with a few organic farms selling their produce there.
If I drive into Limoges, there are several large grocery stores that sell only organic produce, and highlight local produce.
These are all noticeably more expensive than shopping at a regular Super-U or Casino/Geant (big chains), but the selection and quality is quite good.
I'll check into the Ruche near here to see what it's like; but if it's the same farmers we can buy from directly at the weekend market, I'm not sure I see the point.
Edit: "276 Membres"... Huh -- that's significant. Oddly, the producers include a "Safranier", i.e., a saffron farmer. I didn't think that could even grow here.