"Subscription" - a word that you might associate with past decades, daily newspapers or Wendy and Bravo mailings. But probably less with the topics of sustainable consumption and enjoyment. In fact, there are now numerous subscription offers that have taken up the cause of sustainability, moderate and fair consumption and raising awareness of fair production conditions. With vegetable boxes, food rescue and crowd farming, there are numerous ways to have parcels with different contents sent home on a regular basis. You can read in this blog post that subscriptions no longer only have to cause unnecessary stuff and meter-high mountains of paper, what offers there are for sustainable subscription boxes and why they can be given away as great gifts.

The classic of sustainable subscription boxes: vegetable boxes

If it is important to you to eat healthy and seasonally and you want to rely on vegetables and fruit from Germany, a regional vegetable box subscription is probably just the right thing for you!

You will receive a seasonal vegetable box at a fixed rate, usually once a week. The boxes contain the finest that German fields have to offer at the time. Many vegetable box providers give you the choice of how often these sustainable subscription boxes are delivered to your front door. It is usually not a problem to take a break, for example if you want to go on vacation. With almost all providers you can choose between different sizes. Many also offer options between different variations such as "raw food box", "mother-child box" and many others.
In order to keep the transport costs and thus the CO2 footprint of your food box as low as possible, it is advisable to find a regional provider. The search is not complicated at all: simply enter "vegetable box" plus "[your city/region]" in your browser search engine.
The search function of Ökokiste.de is also suitable for organic lovers. There you can enter your zip code and you will be forwarded to various organic farms in your region that offer vegetable and fruit box subscriptions and often other regional delicacies such as cheese, yoghurt and bread.

Etepetete and Bringmirbio

Two organic box providers that cover the entire German area are Etepetete and Bringmirbio.de .
With the goal of reducing food waste, Etepetete buys up vegetables and fruit that don't meet the usual supermarket beauty standards. It packs and then sends it on as climate-friendly as possible.
Bringmirbio started as a family business with the aim of offering a seasonal organic box that is available throughout Germany. If you attach great importance to knowing exactly where the contents of your crates come from, you've come to the right place. Because a large part of the vegetables and fruit in the sustainable subscription boxes comes from the family-run organic farm. Bringmirbio also works with selected other organic farms. You can find a detailed list of them on the Bringmirbio page .
Most organic boxes are priced between EUR 20 and 30, depending on how big, what they contain and whether the boxes are organic or non-organic.
A box subscription is of course also a great gift idea. Most subscriptions can also be canceled at any time. So when you take out the subscription, you are not immediately obliged to keep vegetable boxes for the whole next year (or have someone deliver them to you 😊).

A little more unconventional: weekly vegetable boxes through cooperative shares

Is ecological, sustainable agriculture with a direct connection to the region particularly important to you? Then a membership in a cooperative of a local vegetable nursery is just the right thing! After purchasing one or more shares in the cooperative, a weekly delivery of vegetables will be delivered to your pick-up point or even to your home for a fixed monthly amount. The cooperative shares also guarantee you participation in the general assemblies and a say in voting. So you have the opportunity to actively support a local farming cooperative. By the way, you will be provided with fresh and regional vegetables. These numerous advantages are usually accompanied by a rather longer-term payment obligation of at least 12 months.
Unfortunately, there is no nationwide offer for this, but for anyone interested in farming from Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder) , Plant-Age , for example, is a great opportunity to secure sustainable subscription boxes from a cooperative.
We recommend everyone else to go to the www search for specific regions or cities. 😊

The Sirplus Essen subscription box against food waste

With the mission to bring the issue of food waste into the mainstream and thereby reduce it, Sirplus offers sustainable subscription boxes and individual boxes with saved food.
Although current food production exceeds actual consumption by billions, hunger is part of everyday life for millions of people. Food that is still absolutely edible and without any defects is often taken out of the economic cycle due to an expired best-before date, production errors, packaging defects or similar. This acute waste of food in our mass society is proving to be both an ethical and an ecological, resource-guzzling problem.
With a box or even a box subscription to Sirplus, you can make an active contribution against acute food waste in our society. You can also discover many new, delicious snacks and foods that you might not have thought of without Sirplus.
Sirplus offers its boxes both as individual boxes and as sustainable subscription boxes, the latter with a significant price advantage and a term of 12 months. You can choose between vegetarian and vegan-organic boxes. There is also the snack box, filled with crunchy and sweet delicacies that can no longer be offered in the supermarket for various reasons, such as a packaging error.
The contents of the boxes vary and depend on the food currently being saved, but all boxes are roughly the same supermarket value. The prices of the individual boxes vary between 20 and 50 euros. Compared to the supermarket prices of the content, however, you save between 20 and almost 40 percent.
The Sirplus subscriptions can be taken out for three or twelve months. If the subscription boxes are too expensive for you as a sustainable gift option, you can make your recipient happy with a single sample box full of saved food.

Sustainable consumption through crowd farming

No sustainable subscription boxes in the classic sense, but crowd farming offers another great, sustainable way to have delicious things sent home. Crowd farming works with various farmers worldwide. It aims to shorten the supply chain by mediating directly between consumers and producers. By doing without middlemen, the farmers can be paid higher and, above all, fair prices. So more reaches the actual food producers. This significantly improves the working conditions on site and guarantees the livelihood of the farmers.
On the crowd farming site you can buy individual groceries such as oranges, olive oil or cheese by the crate. This option is particularly useful if you need larger amounts of food, for example to replenish your orange marmalade stocks. Crowd farming is also a great option for group orders with friends and family.

Another exciting way to support individual farms is crowd farming with the offer of one-year farm sponsorships. Depending on which end product is produced or grown on the farm, you can then choose and adopt a cow or an olive tree, for example. You name your adopted child and receive one or more shipments of the corresponding product within a year. So here, for example, cheese or olive oil. The adoption is therefore equivalent to a subscription, giving the farmers planning security as to how much is actually to be grown and thus minimizing food waste. So win-win - and a great gift idea, many adoptions only cost around fifty euros!

Subscriptions that you can't eat, but still make you want to

In addition to the exciting, sustainable subscription boxes associated with food that we have already presented to you, a small excursion into the classic realms of the subscription world: newspapers and magazines!
There are now some magazines that explicitly deal with the topic of sustainability and/or sustainable enjoyment.

The Slow Food Magazine for connoisseurs

One magazine that definitely deserves a mention in this list is Slow Food Magazine . The publisher is the relevant association “ Slow-Food eV .”, which focuses on sustainable food production and conscious nutrition. In the magazine, which is published every two months, you will find regional travel tips, articles about food and nutrition as well as politics and society.
Of course you can also become a member of the association itself. This gives you the opportunity to take part in exciting events on the topic of conscious enjoyment together with like-minded connoisseurs. Incidentally, the magazine subscription is already included in the regular club fee of 75 euros.
So if you are still looking for a gift for a person who is enthusiastic about cooking and, above all, food, you could absolutely hit the mark with a Slow Food magazine subscription or a free club membership.

The Enorm Magazine as a sustainable subscription option

A magazine that is more dedicated to sustainability and the topics that determine our zeitgeist, such as climate change, racism and the question of fair business, is the Enorm Magazin . You will find exciting texts on the topics of climate change, sustainability, racism and social justice, which encourage reflection and discussion!
The Enorm magazine subscription offer is great. Depending on the financial possibilities of the subscriber, there are different price ranges with different service options. So you can find the possibility of a subscription for every budget. It also explains in detail how the magazine price is made up.
With its variety of topics, this magazine subscription not only enriches the subscribers, but also the table discussions in the respective household. 😉

Finally: The tastiest, sustainable subscription boxes you can imagine - the Theyo chocolate subscription!

Similar to the classic process in a restaurant, this blog post ends with something sweet, or floral, fruity, espresso-like. Or with all the flavors that our fairly produced, sustainable and delicious chocolates from the Theyo range have to offer.

From now on there is a chocolate subscription box in our range in our Theyo shop! You can discover new, extraordinary and sustainable chocolates every month with our subscription boxes.
With our chocolate subscription, you will receive 4-5 bean-to-bar chocolates per month, but what exactly the current box contains remains a surprise. What is certain, however, is that the subscription boxes are filled with the finest and at the same time sustainable fine chocolate flavors. So you can enjoy chocolate without a guilty conscience! Because our chocolate experts select the chocolate based on the enjoyment factor as well as sustainability. The box also contains exciting information about the individual chocolates as well as tips on how to optimize your chocolate experience for maximum enjoyment.
The Theyo chocolate subscription is available in two different versions: vegan or non-vegan , with the latter also containing milk chocolate. The term of the subscriptions begins with three (80 euros) months and ends automatically. Of course, you can also give the subscription away to other chocolate enthusiasts. To do this, you simply have to enter the recipient's address as the shipping address.
If you only want to try a single box, that is of course also possible. Just have a look at our shop for tasting boxes !