Tentatively & with trepidation here we go….
Sometime after lunchtime on Monday, that’s tomorrow, the wonderful coding crew at the Open Food Network will flick the “on” switch to our new mobile-friendly webshop.
The great thing about the new shop is that it works particularly well on mobiles and tablets – so no more fumbling around clicking the wrong thing and pushing and pinching screens to zoom in on tiny buttons and all that palaver.
The whole process has been like building a house while we lived in the shed next door. We’ve all got so used to having the kitchen sink beside the concrete mixer, the washing machine next to the double bed jacked up on breeze blocks with the salvaged kitchen bench-tops slid underneath, that I’m not sure how it’s going to feel having a proper home.
And although we’re moving in tomorrow of course there’s more to do; right up until the end of the year we’ll be introducing new features. And just like a house the process will never really end – there’s always something to do, fix, improve.
I’d like to thank all the people who have helped fund this development and especially for your patience along the journey. We’d also be lost without the wise & calm heads over at Open Food Network, particularly the swami-like Kirsten Larsen.
Finally, I’d like to ask for everybody’s help with the new site.
There’s so many moving parts to a webshop that there will be things that need fixing and tweaking. Please email us about anything that’s not working, isn’t quite right or perhaps we could add to our nice-to-have list in the future.
Welcome in…..
A new Good Gut Box?
About five years ago we introduced our “Good Gut“ fruit and veg box for people following a low FODMAP diet. In that time the Good Gut Box has been pretty popular and is a reminder that lots of people live with problematic and often painful digestive systems.
FODMAPs, in case you’ve forgotten, “are a collection of short-chain carbohydrates (sugars) that aren’t absorbed properly in the gut, which can trigger symptoms in people with irritable bowel syndrome”.
If you stick to foods low in FODMAPs then you limit the amount of painful bloating etc caused by those unabsorbed carbohydrates fermenting in your guts – kind of like a biodigester without any outlet to release the gas (apologies IBS community if my analogy’s not quite there).
Anyway, it’s time to review our Good Gut Box – we want it to become more accessible by making it a base to build around rather than a one-size-fits-all box that doesn’t quite fit anyone.
So this is our Good Gut Box thinking –
1. Removing all the fruit and letting people select their own fruit from our Extra Fruit Section – because some people on a low FODMAP Diet can’t eat fruit at all.
2. Reducing the size (and price) so singles or smaller households can get a box that suits them and letting larger FODMAP households top up from the Veg Section.
Email your thoughts/feelings/concerns her
Have a great week
Chris
