Pushing the boundaries of ethical retailing is not always glamourous. Ella Heeks, a director of Abel & Cole, the organic box delivery service, admits that the company’s attempts to get their vans running on 100 per cent recycled vegetable oil are not going well: “So far,” she says, “we have blown up the engine twice.”

The vans run on a biodiesel mix, but as part of the business’s effort to sell food as ethically as possible they would like to run their delivery vehicles on 100 per cent vegetable oils supplied by their local producers. “We’re going to try another two vans with some more tweaks to the engine and see if works better,” says Ms Heeks, who has just been handed a gong at the Women in Ethical Business Awards.

The big supermarkets may be locked in battle over their green credentials, but organic food box delivery firms, farmers markets and independent shops with strong links to producers are stealing a march on their much larger rivals.

While J Sainsbury is still testing an organic box delivery scheme and customers have to go into stores to collect Marks & Spencer’s version of the trend, Abel & Cole is increasing sales by between 60 and 70 per cent a year. It is riding on a wave of customer enthusiasm for healthy and environmentally low-impact food and increased interest in the freshness, provenance and seasonality of food.

The Soil Association, which accredits organic producers in the UK, estimates that there are about 500 such schemes in Britain. Abel & Cole is one of the largest.

Gerardine Padbury, a senior business analyst at IGD, the international grocery analyst, says: “There is a lot of focus on climate change and food miles at the moment and that is going to have an increasing impact on how people buy their food.”

She says that shoppers’ interest in local foods, which are perceived to be fresher and healthier, as well as an increase in disposable income means that people are prepared to pay more for foods that they see as having added value in terms of the environment. Yet Ms Padbury adds: “It’s not going to appeal to everybody.”

Box schemes still hold only about 8 per cent of an organic market that is dominated by the supermarkets. Last year such organic sales via “direct from producer” retailers rose by 28 per cent, compared to 31 per cent growth in the supermarkets. Yet independent stores and box schemes not run directly by farmers, such as Abel & Cole, increased organic sales by 38 per cent, nibbling back market share from their bigger rivals.

The box schemes’ progress seems to be limited by their relatively high prices and insistence on delivering to fit eco-friendly efficent routes for their vans, rather than at the customers’ convenjence.

However, Ms Heeks argues: “It always amazes me that so many people are willing to drive to the supermarket, traipse around the aisles and stand in a queue. I think these people are working too hard for their food. I don’t find it convenient to have to check all the labels, compare 20 to 30 versions of the same thing. I don’t think that’s convenient at all. I try to avoid supermarkets.”

She says that Abel & Cole does the work for its customers because they can be sure that everything is sourced and delivered to the highest environmentally aware and fair trade standards – everything in the delivery should be edible, returnable or recyclable, so that nothing goes in the bin at the end of the day.

“I think that you should sell ethical food ethically,” she says. “You don’t sell it in a supermarket with freezers blasting around it and shrink wrap all over it. People expect that and don’t want to untangle it from a daunting variety of other products.”

Ms Heeks met Keith Abel, the entrepreneur who set up Abel & Cole in 2000, when she was researching plans to set up her own ethical food business. Mr Abel, who started his business by selling potatoes door-to-door after failing his bar exams, employed her almost straight out of university to help his fledgeling business. At the time Abel & Cole had 20 employees and a turnover of about £500,000. Now the business employs about 300 staff, and in the year to August 31, 2006, achieved sales of £19.8 million and pretax profits of £2.5 million. The company supplies 35,000 customers a week and Ms Heeks insists that the business is scaleable, despite its focus on very individual service, where customers can tailor their delivery on a weekly basis.

The company has held on to its “deep green” background, offering seasonal products with minimum packaging, but has added extra products that people want, such as bread, cheese and bananas, all sourced with fair trade, low energy and organic principles in mind.

In the past four years business has taken off partly as a result of its move on to the internet, which helped to attract new customers and improved the flexibility of the service. Now 80 per cent of customers buy online and the company has moved into the home counties, Manchester and Birmingham from its London base. The pace of growth into new geographical markets is held back, however, by the firm’s need to build and research relationships with local suppliers.

“If we can’t get it without air-freighting then we don’t get it. You won’t find strawberries in stock at Abel & Cole in December,” Ms Heeks says.

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