Chicago residents who want to get serious about eating local and organic food have a number of ways to get their hands on produce with low "food miles" that is grown in an earth-friendly way. In addition to the scores of different farmers’ markets to be found in different neighborhoods throughout the city, dozens of CSA options are available from organic farms in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. But what happens after your farm share season ends and your friendly local farmer stops setting up his wares in the regular spot each week? Does the approach of winter mean it’s back to shopping at Whole Foods, where the prices can be high and the connection to local agricultural is not nearly as strong?

Not anymore. These days, Chicagoans have another option for sourcing organic produce that lasts all year long. Best of all, they deliver.

Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks is a unique service in the Chicago area that allows customers to order organic local produce online and have it delivered to their homes. Like a more sustainable version of online grocer Peapod, Fresh Picks offers item-by-item ordering from an inventory that’s entirely organic and, by and large, locally produced. Fruits and vegetables make up the bulk of the stock, but you can also get meat, dairy, eggs, pantry items like pasta sauce and preserves, and a wide array of baked goods. Once a week your order can be delivered, with the produce arriving just hours after leaving the farm.

The prices for custom orders are comparable with organic items in any grocery store, and Fresh Picks tacks on a delivery charge of just $5.50. The value is even greater when ordering the Fresh Picks Box, a CSA-style grab bag of the best in-season produce that comes in three sizes: $15, $25, and $40.

Fresh Picks was launched in 2006 by a married couple, Irv Cernauskas and Shelly Herman, who wanted to broaden the market for organic agriculture in the region. Even though Chicago is a huge market, most of the 40 or so farms that sell to Fresh Picks are too small to supply major retailers like Whole Foods. Such farmers typically rely on farmers’ markets and CSA subscriptions for income, but these channels have their own drawbacks: CSAs require the farms to set up their own distribution channels and farmers’ markets involve smaller amounts of produce that must be trucked to various locations. In a statement on the Fresh Picks Web site, Irv and Shelly say, "We want to partner with farmers to grow the market for local organic food and to improve our health and the environment in the process. We wanted to cut out as many middle men as possible and return the maximum dollars back to the farm so small independent farmers can flourish."

For anyone interested in eating healthy and locally who doesn’t relish the idea of lugging groceries home from the store — especially in the dead of winter — Fresh Picks might just be a dream come true. Speaking as a CSA subscriber who picks up my weekly box of veggies at a drop-off location each week, I can say that there are times when I wish that my food could travel the last six blocks from the farm to my house without my involvement. If I ever make the jump to a car-free lifestyle, this feature would be even more welcome. Yeah, I would rather do without middlemen, but sometimes the right one can make all the difference.

I can imagine that the added luxury of home delivery might also help overcome the mental hurdle that a lot of people — myself included — have about the cost of organic food. Intellectually, I can understand that conventional agriculture is subsidized in ways that are ecologically damaging and that the artificially cheap food prices we’ve gotten used to don’t include hidden costs to society. But I sometimes have a hard time reconciling myself to the idea of a $3 tomato; if that tomato found it own way to my house, maybe I’d be happier paying that price.

I do wonder, however, what the experience of Fresh Picks customers is like when the local growing season ends. During the winter months, there sure isn’t much fresh produce coming from farms in this part of the Midwest. Fresh Picks must get most its winter offerings from growers outside the region, and I wonder if the selection doesn’t drop dramatically or increase in price. But then again, if you’re eating locally and seasonally, you’re not buying strawberries in January, right?

If the Fresh Picks model proves successful, it might just become an idea worth replicating in other communities around the country. I can’t help but think that would be a good thing. Giving consumers new ways to make greener choices — and do it with less effort than they spend making the unsustainable choices they make now — seems like a key to changing the way we live. Only time will tell if Fresh Picks is the Amazon.com of organic food — or the next Webvan.