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Soft fruit from South America is always a struggle for me - both as a customer and a buyer. It's a bit of a gamble because they can look great, but the taste experience is often disappointing. At AmazonFresh we have erred on the side of simply not carrying soft fruit in winter because we hate to disappoint. However, a number of customers have asked for winter fruit - knowing not to expect that summer taste experience. Now that we have launched Daily Produce Ratings, we have what I believe is the perfect solution. Our produce specialists taste and rate the product daily and you can use that information to make a better purchase decision. For example, as I write this - our plums and cherries are both rated at 2 radishes which means reasonable quality, but expect some inconsistency. The peaches and nectarines on the other hand are both rated 1 radish or not impressive, but available in case you need them. The nice thing with this approach is when we do receive that occasional box of really great product in the middle of winter, we now have a way to keep the item available on the site and you'll know when to jump in with both feet and trust that the taste experience will be worth the gamble.

Great news! AmazonFresh now offers magazines.

Enjoy a FREE magazine when you purchase $150 or more. During your checkout process--once you've reached or exceeded $150-- you will receive a message: "Congratulations! Your order qualifies you for a FREE magazine." Go ahead and click the "Place Order" button. You'll be presented with a selection of popular magazines. Select your favorite title of this month's issue by clicking "Choose." Your magazine will be automatically added to your delivery. We hope you enjoy this gift!


Check out our magazines: Shop now

-Limit one per order.
-Offer good while supplies last.
-Due to the weekly rotation of magazine publications, please note that the magazine issue pictured at the time of checkout may not be the issue you receive at the time of delivery.

Due to poor quality, we are temporarily removing Golden Delicious apples from the site - both conventional and organic. The quality has been inconsistent: They are too soft, bruise easily and we are not confident that you will have a good experience with these apples. As soon as quality improves we will bring them back.

Just a quick posting about apple quality at this time of year. You might have noticed that apples are not in their prime and in some cases, are downright disappointing. Because Washington apples have been in cold storage since fall, by the time February rolls around, it can lead to a mushy apple at times. The other problem is that apples from New Zealand are not yet available. When they become available starting in March, we will switch immediately to the New Zealand crop because they will simply be more fresh. In the meantime, our produce specialists taste and rate produce every day, and if they feel an item will not meet your expectations, we will remove it from the site. Good examples are organic Braeburn and Granny Smith apples - both are too mushy and don't taste great, so we would rather take them off the site until acceptable quality becomes available. This is the same approach we take on all seasonal items like peaches where we will make them available later and discontinue them sooner than other stores because of our stance on quality.

Thanks for using AmazonFresh,
Mike

This just in. We have an open position for a mid-to-senior software developer. The position is for the logistics team here at Fresh. We're working on some very interesting problems such as route planning and pick optimization. The dev team is small and we believe in experimenting and getting things done quickly so everyone touches all of the code - from the Website to all of the backend systems.

We're smart, we like to get things done, and we value a realistic work/life balance. If that describes you, drop us a line. A few more details: we work with modern open source technologies including Ruby on Rails, Java, Struts, Python, and MySQL. We follow an agile development process which includes test driven development, pair programming, and room for technical creativity.

The full job description and application is here. Or just drop us a line at fresh-jobs@amazon.com. Bonus if you can describe in simple words how to implement the network simplex algorithm =).

This year my 3 boys and I scored mucho points by hooking up mom with an excellent Valentines Day breakfast. Thought I would share some of the details. This would be a nice thing to do any day of the year!

Menu

• Cranberry Lemon Scones (recipe below)


• Lemon Curd


• Apricot/Orange Freezerves


• English Clotted Cream


• Mimosas (Champagne and Orange Juice)


• Baby Pineapple


• Honey Tangerines

Gifts

• Nikon Coolpix S630 Camera


• Pearhead Side Photo Album


• Single Stem Rose

Recipe for Cranberry Lemon Scones
Recipe adapted from Once Upon a Tart

• 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour


• 1 T baking powder


• 1 t baking soda


• 1/2 t salt


• 2/3 c sugar


• 2 1/2 sticks butter, cut into 3/4 inch cubes


• 2 large eggs


• 1 cup cold buttermilk


• 1 T vanilla extract


• 1 cup dried cranberries or currants

1. Position your oven racks so that one is in the center, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.


2. Dump the dry ingredients into the bowl of the food processor fitted with a metal blade, and pulse a few times to mix


3. Add the butter to the bowl all at once, and run the food processor for 15 seconds. Switch to pulse, and continue pulsing until there are no chunkis of butter left and the mnixture looks like moist crumbs. Be careful not to overmix the ingredients. Remove the blade from the food processor, and dump the crumbs into a big bowl.


4. In another, small bowl, whisk the eggs to break up the yolks. Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla. Use the whisk to stir in the cranberries.


5. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the flour-butter crumbs and stir with a wooden spoon. Stop as soon as no flour is visible. You don’t want to work the dough a moment longer than necessary.


6. Use a ½ cup measuring cup, ice cream scoop, or your hand, scoop the batter out and plop it onto the baking sheet leaving at least 2 inches between the scone.


7. Place the baking sheet on the center rack in the oven, and bake the scones for 25-30 minutes ( I have a convection oven and it took 18 min) until the tops are golden brown and small knife or toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean.


8. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and cool on wire rack.
   
9. Serve with clotted cream (or butter), lemon curd, or jam.
   

Essential Baking Company is moving to a new location on Wednesday 2/17 and will not be producing bread during their moving days. As a result, AmazonFresh will not have fresh baked Essential Breads available for the following delivery slots 2/17-2/18:

1-day shelf life breads

2/17-Unavailable for all delivery slots.
2/18-Unavailable for pre-dawn through 10am delivery slots, resuming at 11am.

B000QN98DQ Essential Baking Company, Ciabatta Loaf, Organic, 16 oz
B000QN9836 Essential Baking Company, Columbia Loaf, 22 oz
B000QNBVI6 Essential Baking Company, Fremont Sour White Loaf, 18 oz
B000QNBVCC Essential Baking Company, Mille Grane Multi-Grain Loaf, Organic,16 oz
B000QNAU7E Essential Baking Company, Rosemary Diamante Loaf, Organic, 16 oz

2-day shelf life breads

2/17-Available for all delivery slots.
2/18-Unavailable for pre-dawn through 10-11am delivery slots, resuming at 11am.

B000QNBVKE Essential Baking Company, French Dinner Rolls, Organic, 8 Pack, 12 oz
B000QN98RC Essential Baking Company, Kaiser Buns, 4 ct (Seasonal), 12 oz
B001O2GQWY Essential Baking Company, Pain Du George, Organic, 32 oz
B001O2ENYC Essential Baking Company, Whole Wheat Rolls, Organic, 15 oz

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We do have a selection of Essential Bake at Home breads that you can enjoy here.

Unfortunately due to the increased demand and the same inventory supply of roses in the world Amazon Fresh Floral has to increase their prices for Valentine's week along with everyone else. I would like to give more of an explanation on why roses increase for Valentine's week. There are many contributing factors to this increase, but the most significant one to mention first is at the farm level. Rose farms have to prepare for Valentine harvest in November. Growers cut the stems whether they are mature on the plant or not so that all the plants produce roses at the same time in February. The costs of course add up when this happens, because they cut several stems to produce one stem for valentine's week. Along with more plant production, labor and equipment quadruple during this large harvest time so there are associated costs that have to be passed on to the florists and ultimately to the consumer.

Another big factor of the increase in price is that most of the world's rose supply is being flown from Colombia and Ecuador. These airlines are flying full to Miami with flowers to be received through customs, but many airplanes are flying back to South America empty or half full. All airlines leaving Ecuador and Columbia in turn charge more; in essence the shippers are paying for the plane to fly from South America and also for the flight back. An interesting fact to note is that during the week before Valentines a 747 plane filled with flowers is landing every 10 minutes at the Miami International Airport in preparation for the popular flower holiday in February.

Valentine's Day is celebrated all over the world. The demand for roses is extremely high, because of that rose growers raise their prices. That is why the price of roses and most flowers go up. Valentine's roses are a classic case of supply and demand and unfortunately pricing must go up for this short period of time. Don't worry, if you're an every week flower shopper like I am, flower prices will decrease the week after Valentines due to the decrease of demand.


Thanks,
Sharon

Win a Romantic Night for Two

Enter the AmazonFresh Valentine's Sweepstakes and have a chance to win a one-night stay for two at the Sorrento Hotel, along with a $150 gift certificate to the Hunt Dining Club.

See more prizes available here (over $1000 in total prizes to give away!):

1 Grand Prize: a gift certificate for a one-night stay for two at the Sorrento Hotel (includes valet parking and a $150 Hunt Club Dining Certificate.)

1 First Prize: a Half Day Excursion for one at the Ummelina Spa in Seattle, WA and a selection of Ummelina Body Care Products

1 Second Prize: a Theo Food of the Gods Chocolate Gift Collection

5 Third Prizes: a pair of tickets to a Theo's Chocolate Factory Tour

5 Fourth Prizes: a dozen roses from AmazonFresh

Place an order for $100 or more and you will be automatically entered to win. No purchase necessary to enter. See Offcial Rules.(Sweepstakes ends 2/12/10.)

Check out our Valentine's Day selection here.

There are multiple problems with an El Nino year. We get less moisture in the Northwest, which doesn't sound all that bad unless you're a skier - especially this year at the Olympic level. Much of that El Nino moisture is re-directed into the Southwestern states and Mexico, which is a problem when it comes to winter produce. Record rainfall in California, Arizona and Mexico plus freezing weather in Florida has combined to create an especially challenging winter for fresh produce. Long story short: There is less produce available than normal, it's noticeably more expensive and it generally doesn't last quite as long in the refrigerator.

The entire produce team at AmazonFresh is acutely aware of these challenges and we are working especially hard to deliver nothing but the best produce to your door. We are working even more closely with all of our vendors to source only the best produce available, but even so, we are rejecting record amounts of produce because it simply doesn't meet our standards - or yours. If all else fails and we feel quality simply isn't acceptable, we will choose to be temporarily out of stock rather than risk sending you an item that will ultimately disappoint - even if that item is common in most stores. Our philosophy is actually quite simple and we take seriously the responsibility it infers: If we wouldn't be happy with an item ourselves, why should we expect our customers to enjoy having it delivered?

As always, my team of produce specialists and I promise that if we do make a mistake and you get produce that does not meet your expectations, we will make it right - period.

Thanks for trusting AmazonFresh!
Mike