I’ve been using CBD products for around three years now. I’ve mainly taken it in the form of tea, water, and gummies, so when I came across the Mostra di Cafe brand on Takealot, I had to try it. Let’s just say I’m on my second bag of coffee.
I bought the ground coffee but they are sold as whole coffee beans as well. You can either get it direct from Mostra di Cafe or through Takealot. The price is basically the same. Both Takealot and Mostra di Cafe have minimum orders to receive free shipping. Takealot’s minimum shipping is R450 and Mostra di Cafe’s is R399.
The taste of the coffee is very appealing to me. I’m no coffee connoisseur; I just enjoy coffee that tastes and smells good and this coffee is amazing. I love it. As for the CBD, I don’t feel any effects when I drink the coffee. I don’t notice that I feel any calmer than normal, nor do I feel particularly agitated. That is until I ran out of coffee a few months ago. I didn’t notice anything initially, but one day I realised that I was starting to get irritated with the house people again in the morning. Which is when I bought my next bag of CBD coffee.
Price-wise, I paid R135 for a 500g bag of CBD coffee on Takealot. It costs R140 on the Mostra di Cafe website. I bought other stuff as well, which made the shipping free. As I said before, I love the taste of the coffee, and to be honest, even if there wasn’t CBD infused into it, I’d still like the coffee.
Checkers Food Services is one of the best-kept secrets of online shopping in South Africa, I think. I’d heard about it a few years ago and signed up for an online account, but then was just too intimated to use it. And I’m an experienced, enthusiastic online shopper. When Checkers Sixty60 came along, I used that but when I needed to order dog food for delivery on the Cape Flats, well that was a disaster. They took the order but then later phoned to say that they don’t deliver in that area, which is about 2 KMs from where they are very willing to deliver. I was upset, man. Mess with human food, but don’t mess with food for animals that I feed! That’s when I looked online for different options.
None of the other big food retailers, like Pick n Pay, deliver there either so I needed a plan B. Plan B, it turned out, was hiding in plain sight. I logged into the CFS website – you need to log in to be able to browse and of course, make purchases – and tentatively messaged them via the chatbot. I asked when they would deliver if I placed an order that day. They said the next day. I didn’t say that I wanted delivery to the Athlone area on the Cape Flats.
The stock is not the same variety you might get when going to a Checkers store or even on the Sixty60 app, which can be somewhat frustrating, but also helps to make choices. For instance, there are just two brands of dog food, one of which the dogs I feed refuse to eat. Fortunately, they love the brand that is in stock, so it’s not a problem for me. One of the advantages is that there are items that you don’t normally find in a Checkers store or on the Sixty60 app, like Coimbra baked goods and bulk catering supplies for functions.
When I placed my first order, it said that there was no delivery fee for orders over R1000 and R100 delivery fee for less than R1000. Subsequently, it changed to no delivery fee for orders of R450 or more.
I chose to have my purchases delivered the following day to the address on the Cape Flats. CFS sent an email confirmation of the order and gave a delivery time within a 2-hour window. They sent another email the next morning as a reminder that delivery would take place. A huge delivery truck with friendly delivery people arrived the next day within the timeframe mentioned and delivered my order without any problems.
I’ve used Checkers Food Services many times in the last year or so and the process was pretty much the same each time. The prices are the same as in-store and on the app. You can link your X-tra Savings card and get the same discounts as in-store and on the app. CFS only delivers in the Western Cape and Gauteng though.
CFS is probably in my top 5 favourite online websites to shop from so, of course, I highly recommend it.
*Disclaimer: This is not an advert or a paid post. It is 100% my personal experience and views.
I found Just Fruit & Veg while searching for, I think, celery or something similar online a few weeks ago. I will pretty much do anything to not go to a physical store: one because I work from home and am nearly always working and two, I hate going to a shop filled with people. It’s not even a phobia, just pure loathing of doing something that’s supposed to be normal but isn’t really.
Anyway, so after scrolling around on their website, I discovered that they’re based in Epping, which is close enough to where I need groceries to be delivered, usually in the southern suburbs of Cape Town or in the Athlone area. Just Fruit & Veg already gets one star just for delivering to the Cape Flats. And their minimum order to get free delivery is R250! I’ve not yet successfully ordered for R250. There are just too many convenient groceries that I seem to ‘need’.
Stock photo
From there, it was pretty easy. I chose the items I wanted, which included some fruit, vegetables, bread, and parathas/rotis, amongst other things. There was some stuff that I wanted to try, like the pasteis de nata to compare it (yeah, right!) with the Coimbra ones I buy at Checkers’ CFS website. I was really tempted, I have to say, but my waistline reminded me that winter clothes hide nothing.
I placed the order on a Thursday morning around 10:00 AM and paid through EFT. They don’t have automatic card payments, which I don’t mind. Since they use the same bank as I do, FNB, the payment was immediate and I received an email that my shopping would be delivered THAT SAME DAY! I’d expected delivery to take place the following day. That was a pleasant surprise. I have made sure that I place my order the night before I wanted delivery to take place in subsequent orders though. Oh, yes, there’ve been subsequent orders.
The only downside I’ve found with ordering from Just Fruit & Veg is the fact that they state that delivery will take place between 8:30 AM and 6:00 PM, instead of giving SMS notice when they’re close to delivering. It’s no different to many of the couriers or large online retailers like Takealot, so I sort of understand. All three orders I’ve placed so far arrived around lunchtime.
Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of my delivered goods. But take my word for it, the products looked amazingly fresh and delicious. None of those Checkers or Pick n Pay stuff that looks like it was dragged around the store before being displayed for purchase. All three orders, over three weeks, looked straight up out of a magazine. Fresh, beautiful fruit and vegetables. Delicious looking and tasting bread. I bought lentils and mushrooms patties last week and it was the best-tasting (as far as I can remember) non-meat burgers I’ve eaten. I might try the beetroot ones next.
So all in all, a four-and-a-half star experience, with the only downside being delivery times.
*Oh, and this is not an ad or a paid post. It’s 100% my nonpaid experience and opinion.
