Buying Club; what is it and how does it work?
The Buying Club is a benefit exclusive to Owners and is worth taking advantage of. It allows us Owners to have a price break when buying cases of products we use all the time (spaghetti sauce, salad dressings, soups, etc.). The grocery catalogs and paper forms are right at the counter in the Café seating area – as you come in from the grocery cart storage area, the stuff you are looking for is exactly on the left, under the art gallery wall. I will speak from my experience, and I can show you a blank order form so we can see how the details are handled.
I have done orders from two of our distributors – UNFI (United Natural Foods, Inc.) and CHEX. We are able to order from any distributor whose name appears on a shelf tag, but keep in mind that not every distributor delivers weekly. UNFI does deliver weekly 49 weeks out of the year – some holidays mess with schedules.
From our distributors, Owners are able to order cases of items and the prices we receive are between 10% and 30% off the shelf price. Prices from our distributors fluctuate and sometimes items are placed on promotional pricing by the distributor. The Co-op does not want to lose money on our Buying Club orders, but because of pricing changes the Co-op cannot promise a constant discount from the shelf price. Common distributors include UNFI, Frontier, CHEX and KeHe.
Take a look at this photo of a shelf tag for Annie's Organic Goddess Dressing – in the lower right-hand corner of that label is the distributor information – in this instance UNFI. My daughter and I like a certain salad dressing so I buy a case and she and I divide the bottles according to need. I also buy soups by the case for quick dinners when I come home hungry.
It is possible to buy wellness items, meat and produce through Buying Club also – just talk to the Managers of those departments. Bring them a Buying Club Order Form with all your personal information filled out, a key piece of info being the last four numbers of your Owner number. Remember, this benefit is for Owners only. Please try to come into Wellness to discuss and place orders between 10:30 AM and 4:30 PM when there are more people staffing the departments. With Wellness, you need to order 3 or 4 of an item – usually not a full case. The Produce staff come in early and leave earlier, so mornings are best for them. Meat’s best time is morning and middle of the day.
When your grocery order form is filled out, put it in the front of the file box near the distributor catalogs, labeled “new orders”. Then as your order is filled and tracked – primarily by Jeremy – you will be called or emailed when the order is in the store for you to pick up. For grocery, your order form will be filed alphabetically in the file holder – so when you come into the store, pick up the form from the folder matching your last name. As you check out, hand the form to your cashier and they will have the box(es) brought up to you during checkout and you will pay then. Meat, produce and wellness departments will contact you directly, with instructions about how to retrieve your stuff from each department. You will always pay as part of the check-out process.
Our website has a little information about Buying Club, as well as a UNFI catalog and an email address for you to use. But I would encourage you to start by coming into the store to place your first order.
Onward!
Kitty Kiefer, Board Member