Eggs, milk, cheese, fish, meat and produce delivered to your door with the click of a button — from local farms without leaving home.

That’s the genius of Connecticut Farm Fresh Express.

In the winter of 2008, Deb Marsden, then 55, was soul searching — looking for something meaningful to do with her life. Then, she was inspired by a story she heard on her iPod about a California woman who delivered farm-fresh foods from community supported agriculture farms in a basket to people’s homes.

Traditional CSAs offer the public a chance to buy shares and receive weekly shipments of whatever fruits and vegetables are harvested in abundance. Consumers aren’t offered a choice of items.

“I thought if I could expand that idea by going to many farms and offering different things, and letting the customer chose what they wanted from those farms versus ‘this what we have, this is what you get,’” Marsden explained.

Her friends and family liked the idea so on a February afternoon while sitting at her dining room table, Marsden exclaimed, “I am going to do it!”         

With just eight customers and four farm suppliers, Connecticut Farm Fresh Express was born. In a little over two years, the business has expanded to more than 200 vendors, offering everything from bread, soap, home-baked goods, beauty supplies, household cleaners and more.

Marsden's vendor requirements are that the business is local with items offered in-season, and they must not use pesticides, hormones or chemicals.

As a child, Marsden learned about the benefit of eating local from her mother as they traveled the state and shopped at farm stands. When Marsden raised her children, she said, she was very careful about shopping at grocery stores in the winter, when she couldn’t peruse local farmers markets. Marsden would ask herself questions like, “‘What is in this? Where did it come from?’”

Searching for local chemical- and pesticide-free food is not easy, Marsden said. “It’s just so scary what [big farms] are doing to our food chain and how they’ve allowed this to happen — it’s just awful. If getting people to be aware of what you’re putting in your mouth and what you’re putting in your kid’s mouths [means] you have to pay a little bit more to get local food, I think it’s more important to do that then to spend money somewhere else.

“It’s so off-kilter, what we will pay for food and what we budget for the rest of our lives. It’s not right and it needs to be adjusted,” she said.

When food is transported across the United States, Marsden said, it loses its nutritional value and leaves a heavy carbon footprint. Buying food from local sources while in season not only means healthier and tastier food, it complements the environment and supports Connecticut-based agriculture.

Not long ago, fears of losing Connecticut farmland to developers and big-box stores was a great concern. Today, Marsden said, there is a resurgence of farmers in the Nutmeg state.

Paul Hughes, business counselor at the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce and a maple syrup sugarmaker, said not only are there vibrant farms in Connecticut, there has been an increase in “gentlemen farmers” such as himself. Retired executives taking up farming as a hobby sell their items through Farm Fresh Express or other specialty shops.

“We’ve been crying, ‘we’re losing our agriculture,’ but the quality of life in Connecticut is based on agriculture. I love what the Department of Agriculture is doing for the agriculture economy in Connecticut,” Hughes said.

According to Planning For Agriculture, A Guide For Connecticut Municipalities, “Farms are thriving and growing across the state in new and exciting ways. Many farmers have capitalized on changing consumer trends and offer a bounty of healthy, fresh food to local consumers. Farms are an integral part of many communities, and residents are increasingly interested in learning about the source of their food and now visit neighboring farms regularly."

Hughes was so impressed with Marsden’s business model that he recommended her for the Middlesex County Outstanding Rural Development Award. “Most of the other regions in the state had their urban projects, and manufacturers and I wanted to show the rest of the state the agricultural economy is great,” Hughes said. And so, Connecticut Farm Fresh Express was honored Dec. 8 at Celebrate Connecticut in Hartford.

Orders can be placed online at CT Farm Fresh Express Thursday through Monday and items are delivered on Thursdays. Each week, the selections change according to what local farmers have in abundance.