Full of beans ... eggs and honey

18 November 2015 - 02:11 By Siphiliselwe Makhanya

David Bartlett is taking the way Durban enjoys its fresh produce back to its roots. In a manner of speaking. The entrepreneur is the founder of Eat Your Home, a food hub sourcing fresh local produce and food products that he personally delivers in and around the city.For the past 15 months - on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays - Bartlett has been loading a van with vegetables, fresh milk, free-range eggs, fresh chicken, raw honey and a variety of cured meats for delivery to subscribers to his service."I'm like a Postman Pat," he says. "I get to wave at people along the way, I get to know certain personalities. It's very social for me."For between R70 and R150 each week you can order a variety of seasonal vegetables for yourself and your family. The food is sourced from small-scale farmers and producers in KwaZulu-Natal - vegetables picked at first light on a small, organic farm in Camperdown; the milk of grass-fed cows from Assegai; free-range eggs and chicken from a farm in the Midlands; traditional Italian-style cured meats from a family-run business in Durban; raw sugar gum honey from Richmond.Eat Your Home is, practically, a one-man venture - even though it has required the support and patience of Bartlett's family. "I'm the social-media guy, I'm the driver, I'm the finance guy. You have to be an all-rounder to be an entrepreneur."His slow-food venture has been in the making all his life."I have an uncle who farms in the Eastern Cape but not in a commercial kind of way - he lives off the land. My father is a nature lover and a bird watcher. He made me realise that humans are just another animal but aren't very successful in the way that we slot into the eco-system."Deciding that desk life wasn't for him, the former banker quit his job in 2008 to travel and work on farms like the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia."I was getting exercise on a daily basis, with a healthy amount of sun and eating fresh food."There he learned about permaculture, a system of farming and living that emphasises working in harmony with nature in your immediate environment to meet your community's basic needs in a sustainable way instead of exploiting the earth for mass production."It's about allowing people to live in a better way. It's not about more money - it's about what you do with that money. It's not about more food - it's about doing the most with the food that we have. It is a community-centric, eco-centric, culturally rich lifestyle."On his return to South Africa, Bartlett began putting his training into practice, at first sourcing fresh, seasonal, local food for his own family. The idea to start Eat Your Home was an offshoot of that. Using the feedback from family and friends for whom he sourced food, Bartlett designed a system that would allow him to offer his services to his wider local community.He would love to see his idea adapted to the needs of other local communities. Right now, his own clientele consists of "a subset of moms, students, foodies and people that are Banting; I get regulars like a guy who's a vegan."He believes the lifestyle is one that could apply across class lines."I've often imagined how this could work in KwaMashu, for instance."My focus is not on spreading, it's on creating the best possible version of a local food network where I work. I would like each neighbourhood to have its own local person doing something similar. I would like to create a really cool, talked-about example of that."Get it at homeDelivery options include free drop off at a convenient place in your suburb or direct delivery for an extra fee. Bartlett delivers to Kloof, Westville, Pinetown, Morningside, Durban North, Yellowwood Park, the Bluff, the Berea, Glenwood, Umhlanga, La Lucia, Mount Edgecombe, Amanzimtoti, Queensburgh, Ballito, Salt Rock and Umdloti. Email: info@eatyourhome.orgPhone: 074-588-6393..

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