Grocer Tesco suspends Soil & Seed organic vegetable box scheme after just four months

It has emerged the exclusive-to-Tesco service, owned by organic vegetable supplier Tio, was suspended this week after a series of glitches including misleading pricing and orders being delivered late.

Tesco said the “well-received” service would “pause” until later this year following the trial. Soil & Seed confirmed that problems in the ecommerce experience had caused the scheme to be put on hold.

Tesco had hoped to gain a slice of the lucrative London foodie market through the scheme which allowed shoppers to order boxes through Tesco.com.

On the site’s launch in November, the grocer offered introductory prices of up to 80% more than a standard box.

A source close to the project said: “It has just not caught on even though Tesco has put some good marketing behind it. There were problems with the IT and deliveries not arriving to customers on time.”

A Tesco spokeswoman told Retail Week: “Organic veg box service Soil & Seed will pause for further IT development with a view to re-launching later this year. The scheme, which offered a variety of fruit, vegetable and salad boxes brought together farmers from around the UK to offer organic produce to Tesco customers in London.”