I just joined a Vegetable Co-Op

[Cyclefrance]

That sounds a good system - something that gets people out of the fast/processed food world as well. I don't know of anything like that over here. Our village shop has been pushing organic food on a vaguely similar basis - by that I mean that you get to be able to buy a box of whatever organic vegetables and fruit are available that week - the box is rarely the same two weeks running.

A lot of the local shops over here are going the fresh/organic and specialist products route here as being one way to differentiate themselves against the supermarkets. They have to specialise to survive - same thing has happened with butchers shops - you don't get so much regular meat as they cannot compete with the chains, instead they go for marinading and blending (like with sausages that are a mix of meats and various herbs).