Final Meetup of 2025 + other stuff

Everything you need for the next month cause we're going on holidays!!!!

Author

Angela Hirst
December 12, 2025

COOKS CO~OP

HELLO!

We are prepping for some real time off, are you? But before you head into the wild with family and festivities, check out what’s new in the list (yep, whoops, couldn’t resist). Plus there’s some interesting numbers in our report that haven’t been there before, which you can save for summer reading if you like. Whatever you do, don’t forget to dive deep into ordering before Tuesday - as it’s your last chance for a month. Your Co-op will love you for it!

a haul from Ange’s garden for the co-op

ORDERING IS OPEN FOR December 20th Meetup

Coffee closes Sunday, 11am.

Everything else closes Tuesday, 11am, but if you get your orders in early, it helps with our predictive ordering.

Remember: this is the last ordering opportunity until our 16th January Meetup, so keep that timeline in mind when thinking about how much to order!

Stone fruit season is here!

The Report

HOW’S THE CO-OP DOING?

Here’s a report out on some Co-op facts. Interested in knowing something in particular? Post suggestions in our Systems Slack Channel.

MEMBERS SAVINGS IN 2025

We’ve been doing a bit of behind-the-scenes number crunching to determine what kind of financial benefits our Co-op offered members in 2025. This is what we found out:

  • Of the products we have official retail pricing for (ie. they have an advertised RRP), our working members pay on average 23% less than RRP. General members pay on average 8% less than RRP.

  • There are only 3 products on our list that cost our members more than RRP (and that’s the biltong). Sure, supermarkets can often charge less than RRP, usually because their buying power allows them to negotiate lower pricing from the suppliers. There’s nothing we can currently do about this, and we appreciate you considering buying from the Co-op even if you can get these products for a little less from a supermarket. Every purchase you make with us increases the likelihood we can make this Co-op financially sustainable.

  • On average, a member who spends $800 month has saved $2747 at the til over the year as a working member, and $1067 at the til over the year as a general member. We’ve taken the $120 admin fee into account in this figure.

MEMBER ORDERS

We are currently taking an average of $15,788 a month in orders. That’s $493 per month per member.

WHAT’S IN THE BANK

We have $3438 in the bank, of which $2690 are member credits & undrawn admin fees.

INVENTORY

We’ve got $23,700 in Stock on Hand. Membership Bank covers $22,600 of this (although, this is still made up of some large contributions from a small handful of members).

OPERATIONAL COSTS

We’ve built the freight and waste costs into the cost price of goods, so it’s not a separate operating cost we have to find every month. We are keeping a clearer track of wastage (you’ll see it sitting as a separate wastage column) so that we can see if we are adequately covering it over a longer time period (some months the wastage is higher than others).

We now have proper insurance for public liability and to cover volunteer work. We are paying back this annual insurance and the three door fridge in monthly instalments to Ange. We also pay $187 in electricity contributions every month. All this plus the dribs and drabs of other operating costs (off site freezer storage, packaging, stationery) comes to a pretty standard $438 per month in operational costs.

A REQUEST RE YOUR FROZEN PRODUCT ORDERS THIS MONTH

Please order exactly what you want from the freezers this month, as that’s all we’ll keep on hand. Because I (Ange) am out of town for nearly three weeks, we’re hoping we can turn off some freezers and keep everything at our off site cold storage for the month. We’ll need to take excess (un-ordered) frozen products to Lytton BEFORE the Meetup. This means all frozen fruit, meats, seafoods, breads, pizza bases etc need to be ORDERED this month. Apologies for this inflexibility!

Mulberry fingers

The List

WHAT’S NEW IN THE LIST

Hampton Blue 2nds Organic Blueberries are back. They aren’t quite as cheap as the Elgin wild blueberries BUT they are from a local farmer who we love to support.

City Larder’s Mushroom Pate, Wild Mother Shrubs & Vinegars and a Barrel Aged Maple Syrup, Meredith Whipped Goats Curd and Yoghurt (only if we meet 6 carton minimums though), Avocado Oil Totopos (retail size bags), Large Bio Rubbish Bags are back, and…

DARK CHOCOLATE IN THE HOUSE! Valrhona’s 53% Tropilia at a very good price because we bought 12kg. It’s delicious, not as dark as we’re used to, but very smooth. More on our chocolate conundrum’s next month.

Some personal care and cleaning additions: Baby Wipes, Glass Cleaner, Room Spray

And because of all the festive snacking headed our way… some Mince Pies & Christmas Puddings from Riser, a lovely little semi-hard Pecorino, some new encrusted fresh Goats Chèvre and various special Goat and Buffalo Bries (happy to cut the larger rounds).

ENOUGH FROM US, TIME TO SHOP

Hope to see you Saturday 20th December.

Members: please tell us if you can’t make it.

Non-members: if you’re interested in joining in 2026, reply to this email and we’ll prioritise you for a trial early in the year.

xx your Co-op crew.

Beautiful shades of apple