It’s effective in Northern Japan as well. In the US, I’ve seen manned farmstand become unmanned late in the day, with just a coffee can or small cashbox for donations.
In the city, generally farmers rent some space in a parking lot of a store or mall to set up their stand and yes, they are there in person whenever I’ve purchased fruit and veggies.
In my neighborhood there’s a cardbox full of lemons with a sign saying “please do not take empty box.” Yes, the box is considered more valuable than the bounty of lemons.
I’ve seen these at farms all throughout Pennsylvania and the Northeastern US for that matter. These are the best places to buy farm fresh brown eggs really cheap.
Since nobody else has mentioned Germany yet - farmers have been doing this there (at least in the South) for a long time as well.
This tends to be more common when the stand is on the farm property, less so when it’s not. Def seen in Mass and Maryland.
Yeah, they’re all over the place here in the Maritime Provinces.
lots of similar stands here in southwest BC.
Used to go to a local apple orchard in Liberty Lake WA, that had this in their driveway. They even had a fridge with fresh pressed cider. I LOVED that cider. Then shitty-corporation Odwalla killed a kid with e-coli in their juice and stupid Washington state decided you MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO DRINK UNPASTEURIZED JUICE EVERY!!!11. Well, no small orchard is going to buy pasteurization machinery, they just stop making cider. sigh. Worked out great for the corporations like Odwalla.
+1 for central Wisconsin.
including the growing trend to coin-operated lockers.
Or as we call them in Japan: “vending machines”
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I do like the automat-style vending machines (“coin-operated lockers”) in the article. Being Japan you’d think that SOMEbody would come up with an anthropomorphic robot for selling veggies.
You see this all the time in Denmark, also with prime quality vegetables grown by small-time farmers. Often, there is no chained box, just a glass jar where you can leave money and even get change.
Here in a semi-rural part of Illinois, I can walk a mile from my house and see the same thing. Some of my neighbors sell tomatoes and sweet corn every year like this.
There’s a whole chapter in Freakonomics about an ex-economist who used an honesty box to sell bagels to various companies. He used the 20-year long records of his takings to investigate trends in white-collar crime.
It’s still common in Germany, I’ve even photographed some of them just at the outskirts of Stuttgart.
I live in southern France, you can find an organic vegetable shed in Montolieu. http://montolieu.blogs.lindependant.com/archive/2011/07/01/un-distributeur-de-legumes-bio-au-coeur-du-village.html
It is a coin operated locker system with a note box if you want to have something delivered the next day.
Seen load in UK, Greece, Germany, France, Italy.
Everything. in the UK, seen books, honey, knitwear, kids toys,
Every time you think of Stephen D. Levitt, I want you to think of this:
“News” /air quotes
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