Fresh food delivery company opens in Valley Stream

A new option for food shopping is available in Valley Stream, thanks to a pair of entrepreneurs who chose the village as their company’s newest delivery location.

Scott Reich and Michael Winik own OurHarvest, which lets customers order from an online menu and pick up their items in the Blessed Sacrament Church parking lot every other Wednesday.

The company’s philosophy is what sets it apart from other food sources, Reich and Winik said. They identified with what they say is a “clamoring” among middle class people for better-quality food that comes from trustworthy food producers.

“It was all out of wack,” Reich said of the food supply chain he and Winik saw as they formed their business. They identified fundamental problems presented by the food retail system — an inefficient system that they said creates unnecessary middlemen, with traditional grocery stores getting their products from large and geographically distant food producers.

They blamed these circumstances for higher prices and products that are less fresh, and difficult or impossible to trace. They also see inconsistency in food quality, with many products using misleading labels and unnatural ingredients, and customers uncertain about their food.

The solution they devised works like a pop-up farmers’ market, where Reich and Winik deliver food they get from local producers, whom they vet thoroughly to ensure that production practices are up to their standards.

To do this, they spent more than a year building relationships with suppliers. They visited various farmers’ markets and posed as ordinary customers, testing the products at each. They tried more than 15 chicken farmers before they settled on one that met their standards — including the treatment of the animals, which they said is part of their concern for the way the entire food system operates.

Because the men get familiar with the farmers themselves, they don’t require that all their products are certified organic. The ones that aren’t are often better, they claimed. Getting certified is expensive — too expensive for many small local farmers who are already struggling to keep their businesses viable.