FAQs

When can I shop with the Co-op?

You can shop with us once a month, every Thursday, or quarterly. The frequency is totally up to you.

All members tend to participate in our once a month Saturday Meetups if they can, as it’s a great chance for everyone to hang out, and there are a few suppliers/products that we only have available on the list for this Meetup. It’s the biggest shop of the month, which means we often have more fresh produce available than we do weekly. But if you need to miss some Meetups here and there, that’s not a problem, and you can always shop a Thursday either side of it, if Saturdays are generally your only shop with us in a month.

Some members do all their shopping with us once a month.

We also offer a Thursday shop weekly, where everything is packed up for you, you just come and pick up what you’ve pre-ordered.

You can even shop once every quarter, that’s quite alright, too. Some of our members who live further away do a big stock up like this and it works well for them.

How do I pay for my shop?

All shopping is paid for by bank transfer.

For weekly shopping: You can transfer in a nominal bulk amount (say $500) and eat away at it every shop until you need to top it up again. Or, you can pay exactly what you owe after each shop. Whichever suits you best.

For our Monthly Meetup Shop: As this is the largest shop of the month, we ask people to top up their credits to an estimated order amount BEFORE the Meetup, because the extra cash in our bank account helps us order up from our suppliers.

If you’re account is ever in arrears, you’ll see this in your ‘balance’ in the Produce List and can top it up. Please always make sure you’ve corrected your account arrears as soon as you notice them, and at least before you order again.

Do I pre-order everything or can I shop on the day?

If you are shopping with us Thursdays, then you pre-order everything. Orders close Tuesday at 11am. It’s then all packed up for you to pick up at your convenience on Thursday afternoons.

If you are shopping at our Monthly Meetup, then you pre-order as much as you can, particularly items that you would be disappointed to miss out on if you didn’t pre-order. Orders close Tuesday at 11am for the Saturday Meetup as well. Then during the Saturday Meetup, most of what you have pre-ordered is already waiting for you in boxes & bags, in the ambient, cold and frozen storage areas. Anything that you have pre-ordered through the bulk bucket section of the sheet is packed when you arrive, into the vessels that you bring. This gives you an opportunity to scale up or down your order slightly. And you can also add more items at this time, from any of our available sections, including the bulk bucketed section, the freezers, the fridges, the leftover fresh produce, that pantry. You’ll know what’s available because it’s basically anything that you can see (as the rest has been packed for people). When it comes to any spontaneous bulk bucket items you may want, your vessels will be filled once all the pre-ordered vessels for that item is filled. For example, you may want 1kg of almonds that you hadn’t pre-ordered. After all other pre-orders are filled, there may only be 800g left, so you will only get this amount.

What are the objectives of the Co-op?

Our objective is to offer an alternative to supermarket shopping, one which prioritises communities over convenience. Our work-in-progress mission - creating a connected, thriving community of people widening the definition of nourishment beyond themselves and their families, to encompass locality, producers and planet. As we grow, so, too, will our group decision making processes, and we'll use these to keep our objectives alive and developing.

Who sources the suppliers and decides what’s available?

Suppliers sourcing and availability - initially, it's been myself, Olga & Billy, the founders of Cooks Co-op. Our sourcing is informed by a complex set of priorities: increasing the diversity of our offering, quality, growing practices, locality, size of producer, processing practices, cultural value, packaging minimisation, health and affordability.

Initially, these were thrashed out between us product by product. After awhile, we divided up our suppliers and took responsibility for sourcing with advice from each other. We all worked together at Wandering Cooks for a long time, and developed a Sourcing Charter there, so we do have a short hand common way of understanding the complexities.

As we've taken on members, we've begun to translate and adapt our sourcing practices through direct conversations with our members, and we will work as a group to refine these as we develop. We use various Slack Channels to consider product suggestions from our members and review existing products.

In terms of availability - we try to have as much available as we can, to meet our objective (replacing supermarkets). We currently have over 1000 product lines. If you’d like to see the current list, have a look here. If you’d like to read a little more about the strategy behind our diversifying offering, check out this post.