Quality Control

   We have had a couple of complaints about the onions, and I thought I would take the opportunity to try to explain a little about quality issues.  We do our (very) best to check for quality, and to select produce for you, our customers of what we consider the highest standard we can manage.  This does not mean perfection, especially not cosmetic perfection.  I am sure everybody is aware of the year-by-year pressure supermarekets have put on visual perfection - standardised sizes and shapes and colours (often, rather usually at the cost of taste and nutritional quality - nutrient density).This frankly is something we can't compete with.  Our growing methods are completely different to the standardized (industrialized) methods of commercial conventional vegetable or fruit growers.  The use hybrid varieties, which produce much more standardized sizes, yields - we try to use open pollinated varieties, which are genetically more diverse, and more nutritious, but which inevitably are less uniform in shape, colour, etc.  They use artificial fertilisers, which force feed crops into larger sizes (higher water content).  The grow large areas of single or a few crops, the standard sizes are selected - much of the crop is rejected as waste "wares".  We try to minimise waste, and would rather select for taste and nutrient density.

There is of course a happy medium to be struck, and both Kati (in the garden) and Kata (managing the box packing) supervise things, and try to keep the highest standards we can manage.  Sometimes things slip through,  We try to keep our customers satisfied if they have experienced sub-standard vegetables - either by replacing or returning or giving credit.  In the case of the onions we are selling (usually from Rábcapkapi Biokertészet at the moment), these look fine from the outside.  Maybe 10% (that is around 1 in 10 onions) has an internal fault, which can't be seen from the outside.  This is a production fault, which only becomes apparent in storage.(botrytis neck rot).  We cut open samples of onions today, and saw that the problem is so far just superficial - but we will keep monitoring the onions.

If you have any produce quality issues, please do get in touch.  It might be awkward, but we would far rather you are happy as a customer and we hear about problems, than customers quietly slip away, without us knowing the reason,  We will do our best to address your complaint,  Please email any quality issues to info@zsambokibiokert,hu