Food, Co-ops & Community Networking Event

After getting in touch with Alison Belshaw the Food Co-ops Advisor for the South West Region for Sustain, she has invited us to a food co-ops networking event in Bristol on Wednesday 8th February 10am - 3.30pm (free with lunch included!) We will be staying until 4.30pm for the extra discussion - There is interest in developing support for co-ops in the Bristol area after the MLFW project finishes. A discussion will be held around developing food markets within community centres and community led bulk buy food groups and cleaning refills between 3.45pm and 4.30pm.

See the flyer below for details of the event. I can't work out how to attach the booking form so let me know if you'd like to attend and I will forward it to you. Mark and I will be going in the Bongo and have space for another 6 people so just give us a shout if you would like a lift.

I am really looking forward to attending the workshops and finding out more from people who actually know what they're doing!

Another wholesaler recommended

After the word is starting to spread via the wonderful world of social media, another wholesaler - Suma have been recommended. I have requested a temp login in to view their prices (please give me a shout if you want me to email the username and password so you can have a look too) and after comparing a few products, some are cheaper than Essential Trading, some more expensive.

What I suggest is that we stick with Essential Trading for now (the fact it's based in Bristol whereas Suma is based in Leeds also lends me more to the original choice, but I don't know what the rest of you think?) and in the future if/when we are big enough to hit the minimum £250 spend from both suppliers we buy the various products where they are cheaper.

Feedback encouraged please!

Food Co-ops Tool Kit

A simple guide to setting up food co ops - very friendly document to help us on our way. Thank you very much to sustain and everyone else involved in its publication.

The first spreadsheet

Here is a copy of the spreadsheet we will hopefully base our first order on. Click on the icon in the bottom right hand corner to view full size. I think you should then be able to choose 'edit in browser' and it will automatically save your changes. Please test this before you believe me!

What is this group all about?

Well...

After talking with friends it became apparent that there was a desire among a few Weston-super-Mare locals to buy our food from somewhere other than a supermarket. I won't go in to the reasons why, you can decide that for your fine selves.

Of course there are small outlets in the town to buy food from, as well as great delivery schemes such as Riverford Organic and Cossey Produce. But what about all those 'essentials' such as baked beans or washing up liquid or sugar or I don't know, cashews? That question led me to another great site, Somerset Local Food Direct. However, there was further to go, as the supplier for some of their non-fresh goods is an aptly named Bristol based food co op - Essential Trading. So, why not skip the middle man and their margins a bit more, I thought.

Well as luck can have it, Essential Trading will allow us to do just that. (I say luck, what I actually mean is hours sat behind a laptop making a spreadsheet as well as many hours more working out quantities, lots of maths and the bit I'm looking forward to - making cups of tea for like minded folk when they come to collect their orders :) The main conditions Essential Trading ask us to comply with are that the group consists of at least 4 households, the minimum order is £250 and we are open to new interested people - we are! Hello new interested person!

The idea is pretty simple. We want to save money, buy mainly organic and/or fairtrade and as a big bonus, avoid the supermarket. Oh, and we thought on the first order we should add 5% to the catalogue price in order to make a donation to fantastic Weston-super-Mare Foodbank.

I just need to make it clear that we are a food buying group and the intention is to source the best quality ingredients for the best possible price from the best possible supplier. For example, if we bought 500g of couscous from Somerset Local Food Direct (supplied to them by Essential Trading) it would cost £1.99 per 500g. If we were to buy and split a 5kg bag of couscous directly from Essential Trading it would cost £1.19 per 500g.

However - Somerset Local Food Direct win my vote for their Fussels 5l rapeseed oil for £19.99 which is produced and bottled in Bath. Essential Trading are a good start - but this is surely just the start of the journey!