Horrah! At last! A cheap way to stock up on fresh fruits and vegetables without romper-ing my orto. With soaring food costs in Buenos Aires, it’s extremely rare to find a verdulería that uses high quality ingredients while charging affordable prices. La Barata del Central is my new obsession, delivering a massive box filled with happy (and cheap) produce galore, coming directly from BA’s market mecca, Mercado Central.
In many cases, verdulerías in the city may charge up to 60% of the wholesale price, and with this in mind, the founders wanted to create an alternative for us poor city dwellers to have affordable produce options. After much news in the press over the years about the massive gap between grocery and vegetable shop prices versus Mercado Central, the La Barata del Central project was born.
The online service is easy to use: each week there is a “Canasta de la semana” that comes
with about 15-20 different fruits and vegetables. The website shows exactly what’s in the box for the week, so there’s no need to pick and choose what you want, and generally includes a great selection of in-season products. (Except acelga, blech I hate acelga, and it always seems to be in the canasta). The ordering process is simple, click “order”, fill in your details, choose if you want topick it up from their Palermo Hollywood location or have it delivered if you live in the zona de entrega (for an extra 10 pesos), and choose the date and time of the delivery. Then, once you successfully order, they will send you a confirmation e-mail. Super easy to navigate, I only wish they had a space to write notes before submitting your order and they would respond when you write them an email.
Sometimes the box doesn’t come exactly as advertised, with last minute ingredient swapping depending on what they have in stock. So far all the boxes I’ve ordered have been incredibly generous, including additional quantities or even extra products that aren’t on the list. I’m not about to whip out a protractor and start doing calculations, but at only AR$50 for the box (plus AR$10 for delivery) each items comes out to be ridiculously cheap and great quality. Awesome service that I highly recommend.
Ñoqui says
STOP recomending La Barata del Central, the product quality is always bad.
Luisita says
Thank you for the tip. Ordered yesterday (the 19th), and got almost everything in the box…with a promise from the owner to send over the missing items. Never happened. Today was a holiday, so maybe tomorrow. I respectfully disagree that the quality is “excellent”…but still not bad for the price. It would be nice if there were a choice to order “comun/commercial” or “superior” quality, all of which are sold in the Mercado Central,. However, I believe the superior stuff is bought up by highest bidder (if you read their website), the balance remains.
forkyou says
Agree with you – it’s good quality for the price.. the first box I got was pretty good stuff (you can tell from the fotos), then I think once their popularity started growing they began to slip on quality and customer service. Still a great deal for 50 pesos.
malter2010 says
my box this week was not too good, but I’ll give them another chance as the value is great for $50
Luisita says
I agree.
Warren says
Whoah this website is good i love reading your articles. Keep up the excellent job!
Anonymous says
That looks like a lot of food. For two people, can you eat the stuff before it goes bad? Or is it more meant for a family/household?
forkyou says
Yeah, think so, but we eat a lot (there is two of us). Whenever it comes I eat mostly at home and do lots of cooking with it and am able to use it before it goes bad. Last week I made vegetable pasta, teriyaki fried rice with veggies and baked potato soup. I didn’t like the apples (they were kinda mushy) so I made apple sauce..
This site is cool to use http://www.gojee.com/ put in the ingredients you have and it gives recipe suggestions
Diego says
we ordered and sent my friends this link and they all ordered too! thanks!
annamarkwell says
Very excited for my delivery tomorrow – thanks for the tip!
Cory says
Nice find! Just ordered me a box…
paigepilar says
Ughh todo bien but if they’re coming from Mercado Central would it kill them to expand their zona de entrega to include Retiro? I feel like an outcast of society. I want a box of veg.
Buenos Aires Life (@buenosaireslife) says
Awesome, just ordered! Thanks.