Food Purchasing Process
Welcome, Aaron -- your co-op # will be 031. When you get a chance, I'll need your snail mail address as well as a phone # where I can reach you if there is a truck time change.
Our group's website is www.staplesnthings.com . There you will find a list of delivery dates and deadlines. The next delivery will be November 14th. The deadline for Frontier orders is the 6th, and the deadline for UNFI orders is Sunday morning the 11th. The earlier you get your order in, the better the chances for completing any cases you might want to split.
Below are some instructions, not very organized, but hopefully complete:
You're all set up on the UNFI site.
Go to www.unfi.com > select Member, then Eastern region.
When you get to the sign in page, your username is AaronM and your password is: Organic031 (zero, three, one) The password is case sensitive.
You can select My Basket or Splitting Cases from the drop down menu. One tip is to sort the splitting cases by 100 per page instead of the 25 per page that is the default. It makes things go faster, although right now there is not much to look at -- when I submitted our October order on Sunday all baskets were emptied. If you don't want a full case of something, just check the splits box and put how many you want in the Qty. box. If you want 6, but would take the whole case if no one else wants some, you can put 6 in the "more" column. That way you will get at least 6. If someone else takes 3 and no one else wants any, you'd get 9. If you just want 6 and no more, and no one else takes any, that case would be deleted before I submit the order. You'll never get more than you want of a product...but you might not get any.
Most things on the UNFI site are sold in cases, but many things are available by the 'each', or M3, meaning you have to order at least 3.
The prices shown on the UNFI site do not reflect our volume discount of 15%, which we get on anything that is not already on sale. If something is on sale for 20% off, we would get that discount. If it's on sale for 10% off, we would get our 15% discount instead.
We also get a list of Extra Specials each month, which I'll be sending out today. Some of these are discounted 30, 40 50% or more. Since the UNFI site is open to all buying clubs, and only the top 10% get the Extra Specials, these prices will not show up on the website. Your invoice will reflect the discounted prices at delivery.
I'm attaching a copy of our member handbook. There are a lot of good tips for using the UNFI site there. It will all seem very confusing at first, but as you use the site it will all make sense.
Besides ordering from UNFI, we also order from Frontier Natural Products. Until I get a Frontier catalog to you, you can go to www.frontierwholesale.com We don't pay taxes on these items, so the wholesale price you see is what you pay. Our username is staplesnthings, and the password is 2925. When you get on the site, you can find things using various search methods. We don't order from that site, however. If you see something you want, send an email to Pam Burback at frontierorders@yahoo.com. To facilitate ordering, Pam likes to have your order in this format:
Product number, quantity, brief description.
For example:
20158 - 4 - Natrol vitamin E capsules, 60 count, 400 iu, $8.76
10674 - 1 - Frontier korinje cinnamon, 1 #, $5.67
85004 - 1 - Dr. Bronners peppermint bar soap, 5 oz. $2.67
The subject line of your email should be "Novermber order for #31" The deadline for your Frontier order is the Tuesday before the divide, so for November, it will be November 6th.
The orders come every 4 weeks, always on a Wednesday, and always about 1 pm, at Chandler Baptist Church, 11401 Missouri 33 Liberty, MO 64068
It costs nothing to join Staples 'n Things -- no dues either. We just ask that you order at least 4 x a year.
I'm sure you'll have questions -- it's very confusing at first, but I promise in a couple of months you'll be an expert. You're welcome to order for your friends or family, but trying to figure out who owes what can be confusing. I'm happy to set up a separate account for them.
I'm looking forward to meeting you, if not tomorrow, then next month on the 14th. Call me if you have any questions at all -- 628-6754. Cell is 816-392-4303, but we don't have a good signal at our house so the home phone is a safer bet. Email is safer yet -- I check it constantly :)
I'm sure I have forgotten something -- we usually go over this stuff in person. Let me know if you have any questions. I am retired and have nothing else to do :)
Lou
Lou
