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Anyone who is committed to buying organic is going to run into challenges, especially as winter approaches.

About 1,200 organic food delivery programs exist around the country, and demand is said to be growing.

Irv and Shelly’s Fresh Picks in Niles is one of the only online grocery stores in Chicago through which customers are guaranteed organic produce, meat, dairy and eggs that are produced in the area. Other stores promise organic, but Fresh Picks is one of the only ones to use area farm products.

Orders can be delivered year-round in a matter of days.

 “We have a really big week coming up with extra deliveries for Thanksgiving,” said Irv Cernauskas, who operates Fresh Picks with his wife.

He said he and his wife, Shelly, were inspired by his work with nonprofit environmental organizations and that they wanted to create a business that made it easier for his family and Chicagoans to get locally grown and organic food.

“What drives us is environmental protection, healthy food and keeping the local farmers and economy thriving,” he said. After more than a year in operation, the company delivers to thousands of customers in 55 zip codes in northern Illinois.

Fresh Picks offers produce from about 60 farms in the area and supplements with produce outside the region in the winter months.

Customers can order any products online or opt for a Fresh Picks box that is automatically delivered weekly or bi-weekly. A smaller box feeds one or two people for a week ranging from $15 to $25, while a larger box should satisfy a family of four for $40.

However, there is currently a minimum order size for custom orders of $35 and a $5.50 delivery fee.

Plastic, insulated containers with ice packs keep the food fresh for eight to 10 hours.

April Hammerand, 22, first became interested in local produce at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now works in custumer communications for Irv and Shelly’s small staff.

“We had the best box last week,” she said. “It was green and beautiful and all of it was local. It’s root vegetables, spinach, carrots … it was great to have the diversity.”

“There’s a lot of picky people out there,” she said. “If you want to experiment, we offer that option. Most people are only familiar with certain fruits and vegetables, but we diversify the types of nutrition available.”

While buying organic and local is starting to become a regular occurrence for a lot of Americans, home delivery service is a fresh approach to connecting to the land in an urban setting.

Reetta Talmie, who lives in Evanston and says she buys organic whenever she can afford it, says she prefers the traditional shopping experience where she can see, smell and touch the food she’s buying.

“I’m a hands-on kind of gal,” Talmie said while eating dinner at Whole Foods. “But having said that, if I was familiar with the produce, I might be more apt to order online. I’d want to know the farmer who actually produced what I was buying.”

This Thanksgiving, Chicagoans can track where their turkey and all its organic trimmings came from – down to the exact farm and farmer.

The company has a tracking system for the local products so custumers can know who farmed and what growing technique they use.

In addition to providing organic and local products, Fresh Picks hopes to help the environment by keeping supermarket parking lots empty: A goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissionsby 50 to 100 car trips a day with each vanload of deliveries.

But you don’t have to have it brought to your door.

An alternative to home delivery like Irv and Shelly’s is shopping or community co-ops and U-pick farms, where consumers go directly to the farm to pick and buy produce.

Chicago has a new permanent, year-round urban farm, which opened on Wednesday in Englewood at 5814 S. Wood St.

The Wood Street Urban Farm is the third site for Growing Home, a Chicago-based certified organic agricultural business.

The farm has a social mission of providing transitional employment for homeless and low-income adults.

Co-ops keep costs down, but may lack seasonal variety.

The urban farm will have hoop houses, which are similar to makeshift green houses, to grow crops throughout the winter.

According to Growing Home, the U.S. organic sector is expected to grow from $13 billion in 2003 to more than $25 billion in 2007.

However, less than 3 percent of organic produce available in Chicago is grown in the area.