Great News!
Skookum is in the process of creating The Abundant Pantry (TAP), a bulk buying club (BBC) for ordering healthy food, cleaning products, and personal care products, that will be free to all Skookum members.
Our goals are to:
- increase people’s individual and household food security by encouraging and facilitating food storage, which is one of the three pillars of food security, along with production and preservation.
- offer access to more affordable organic food than available through retail outlets, due to group buying and bulk rates
- increase the food independence of our local community by establishing our own systems of procurement, and increasing our involvement with local producers.
- offer a direct link online between local families and local farmers, which encourages more local farming, local eating, and an increased capacity for this community to sustain itself
- bring people together as a community, by working together in sorting deliveries, sharing split orders, and celebrating together at quarterly potluck dinners.
- contribute to employment in the community, by employing a coordinator and supporting local farmers and producers.
- provide ongoing contributions of food or money to local food-related projects
- financially support Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative’s various projects.
Why is a BBC useful to my family or yours?
- It makes it possible for us to buy organic food, other healthy staples, eco-friendly cleaning products, and eco-friendly personal care products, at a price we can afford, thanks to bulk purchases and group buying.
- It ensures that our family eats better, because there is more healthy food in the house, at all times.
- It makes us think through what we buy in advance with the result that we spend our money more wisely than we would on a quick trip to the grocery store every couple of days.
- Used regularly, a BBC results in our automatically having three months or more of healthy food on hand at all times, keeping us prepared to weather an emergency, such as a transportation strike or a natural disaster.
- Our full pantry encourages us to cook from scratch most of the time — better for us, better for the planet.
- Over a year’s time, our family moved comfortably into a cycle of a case of peanut butter this month, a case of pasta sauce in the next order, 12 boxes of cereal the following order, etc., so the food costs were spread across the year. We kept a separate check-off grocery list for our BBC, so that it was easy to make up our order.
- We loved having a large freezer full of as many as 12 litres of organic milk and 18 pounds of butter, so (thanks also to our laying hens) there was never a panicked dash to town for basic items. This reduced energy consumption, fuel costs, and pollution, as well as anxiety.
- We loved having access to a vast array of vegetarian-friendly items. Others will be thrilled at the wide variety of choices for Vegan, Dairy-free & Gluten-free diets.
How will The Abundant Pantry work?
The first step, if a person is not already a member, is to join Skookum Food Provisioners’ Coop ($20.00 fee). Members of Skookum are invited to sign-up for TAP (it’s free), by contacting Wendy (wendy dot pelton at shaw dot ca) with their e-mail address to get on the TAP e-mail list. You may get off of our list at any time, by contacting Wendy.
The new member will then receive information about how to log onto and use the Online Order Program, where you can begin building your first order from the choices found there. The program can remember your list, in case you wish to add items continuously during the entire two months between orders. Or, you can create your order all at once from a paper grocery list.
The online order program is easy to use, and will have several different ways to search for items (by department/type, by producer, by organic certification). Each item’s page will offer detailed information. Eventually, we hope to have photos for most products. What ever items are in your “shopping cart” at the close of the order, will automatically become your order – there is no “submit” button. You will be able to view and print an invoice of your order’s items, mark-up, and total due.
Over time, the ordering program will offer an increasing number of products from local farmers. With each customer order, the program will automatically reduce inventory of that item, so there will be no disappointments.
We have chosen a bi-monthly (once every two months) cycle to place orders. This could change based on the members’ desires and the size of the club. For now, Members will be notified on the first Sunday of each odd-numbered month that the order deadline is one week away (11:00 pm on the second Sunday of the month).
Pick-up will be between 2:00 pm – 7:00 pm, at the Sunshine Organics Warehouse, in Wildwood (exact location to be announced), on the Thursday after the 2nd Sunday of the month (the order deadline day).
In advance of pick-up day, several volunteers will have been identified to help sort the delivery prior to the start of pick-up. The sort will begin at 1:00 pm. Each household participating would volunteer a family member, or their stand-in, to sort twice a year, or as needed, based upon the cycle or ordering and the number of members participating.
In the interest of reducing energy use, costs, and pollution, members “up north” or “down south” are encouraged to coordinate a pick-up of several orders to redistribute at a site in their own neighborhood. The pick-up volunteer would need to have collected all the payments for all the orders, in advance of pick-up. No order may leave the pick-up site without payment in full.
Orders must be paid for at pick-up by cash or check. However, before paying, it is important for members to check their items against their invoice, which we will provide, to make sure that they are not missing an item, as well as that they don’t have an extra item accidentally placed with their order. They will also need to check for broken or spoiled items, because all complaints must be placed with the cashier prior to leaving with the order. The coordinator must report concerns to the distributor the next morning in order for problems to be resolved.
A person desiring to split a bulk order, for example a case of 12 jars of peanut butter, will be able to go to the TAP “Splits Page” (a Shared Google Document), where they can post the offer to split. For example, if Fred planned to order the case, but only wanted 6 jars, he could ask, via the “Splits Page,” who might be interested in the remaining 6. Susie could enter into the form that she wanted 3, as might Oscar. They would arrange to meet at the pick-up site to split the order and pay him there, or Susie & Oscar could pay Fred in advance, if they couldn’t get to pick-up until after Fred was gone. Fred would pay TAP for the entire case at pick-up, and it would show up only on his order. A more detailed explanation exists at the bottom of the “Splits Page,” a link to which will be on each e-mail you receive from us, as well as on the front page of the Online Ordering Program.
If members want to split “messy” items, which will require re-packaging, like a 22-pound bag of lentils or flour, we require that they complete the split at someone’s home or at the park, rather than at the pick-up site, in order to reduce the chaos & mess, keep the pick-up process moving quickly, and protect our relationship with our pick-up site.
Members are encouraged to regularly suggest & discuss desired changes, as well as offer praise for successful aspects of the process (positive reinforcement works!), at either the future BBC Forum Page (or Google Documents page?), or by e-mail directly to Wendy.
I also encourage participants to use additional future forums (or Google Documents pages?), to discuss products they liked or didn’t like, as well as to share recipes. These discussions can help all of us get the most value out of our club and our food.
Lastly, we invite all BBC participants to CELEBRATE with a potluck dinner, quarterly! Invitations will be sent by e-mail. Let food bring us together in joy!
Want more information? Please contact Wendy Pelton at wendy dot pelton at shaw dot ca, or at (604) 485-6664 >11:00 am.
