Veggie Ordering

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Ordering vegies from Back To Eden

Welcome to the possibly funnest and most rewarding role in the everyday workings of the food co-op. Ah the joys getting to choose seasonal delights, force strange and exotic vegetables into people’s lives, and caress so many beautiful happy organic presents from the earth.

We currently get most of our veggies from a supplier called Back to Eden (B2E), who source organic produce from around Australia, and deliver it to us for free. They are lovely people and very good to us.

Check email

Log into veggies@thoughtfulfoods.org.au This is where the list of available produce from B2E gets sent (normally by midday on a Wednesday). If people have particular queries about veggies, or changes to their order, then they will hopefully have emailed this address too.

Check veggie list

Locate the list of people getting veggies for the week. Check to see numbers all seem to add up, and see what the total is. Multiply this by 0.9 (this is how much we spend). Subtract any money spent on farmer direct stuff via Michelle. What’s left is how much we have to spend with Back to Eden. I then like to calculate roughly how much to spend on fruit and how much on veggies. 1/3 fruit to 2/3 veg seems to give a pretty good ratio, but you may need to change this a bit with the seasons and availability.

Using the B2E spreadsheet

Open the spreadsheet of available veggies and prices from B2E for the week. Type ‘Thoughtful Foods’, your name and phone number up the top. Make the far right column (I) into a totals column so you can keep a tab on how much you are spending on each veggie. (In I14 type =, then click on A14, type * then click on F14: so it reads ‘=A14*F14’. Press enter. Click on bottom right hand corner of cell and drag all the way down the column). After the last line of fruit, in the same column (I) make a cell for the sum. Type =sum then highlight all the way back up the column. This cell will tell you how much you are ordering overall. I also find it useful to make separate sum cells for fruit and vegetables, so I know how much I’m spending on each.

Order away!

Place the quantity you want in column A and press enter to see the totals creep up.. There are not really any hard and fast rules, and you will learn quantities with experience. See below for some general guidelines. Keep going till you’ve spent the total amount. (don’t forget to save).

Ordering guidelines

  • Don’t order things that don’t tell you how much the box weighs. Steer clear of trays as they’re generally more expensive things.
  • Keep an eye out for specials- 2nds or juicing quality fruit or veg are often really good, just have marks or blemishes that means they won’t sell as premium quality.. plus B2E look after us really well and give us good quality stuff.. eg. Juicing apples and carrots are almost always lovely, great good value reliable thing to order
  • Have a think about what’s in season. If you’re not very experienced with this maybe chat to someone who is or do some googling… [any good web resources for this anyone??]If something is new on the list, don’t get over-excited, it may just be coming into season and so should go down in price and up in quality
  • Try to balance out different types of veggies. Eg something starchy/root veg like potato, kumera or pumpkin, turnip or parsnip,beetroot; lots of greens, something oniony like onions, shallots or leeks, something exciting that’s in season like eggplant or kohlrabi. Leafy greens really bulk up the boxes, make them lovely and big, so generally go for at least 2 types eg spinach and and asian green, or lettuce and kale.. Asian greens seem to be really popular.
  • I was initially told never to order more than 1 bag of carrots or potatoes, but since the orders have been getting up around $1600 I have actually started doing that and they actually split up better. Plus they’re really good value and you can put them in everything.
  • Aim for at least one big thing in the boxes eg broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage
  • Figuring out the quantities of bunches can be difficult.. It can be a good idea to run through in your head or on scrap paper how you would hypothetically split them up (eg. ‘if I gave 1 to the 50s and 40s, half to the 30s and 20s…etc, how many bunches would I need?), thinking about how you will then balance it out to keep things in a good ratio.
  • It’s nice to order treats sometimes, eg. Passionfruit, garlic, ginger, limes… Even if they only go in the biggest boxes. This can be a good way of spending the last $50 or so if you don’t know what else to get.
  • Don’t be afraid to be adventurous- if there’s something interesting at a reasonable price that you’d like to try- go for it! People are generally fairly receptive, especially if you put up signs telling people what things are, and even send out recipes.

Processing bulk orders (if applicable)

Bulk orders may be placed by any member as long as we are doing them for that week. (Andrew is working on a simple way to let them know which weeks it is happening.) We don't really advertise this because of concerns of it getting out of hand, but I am very open to new people participating – especially if they help distribute vegetables on Thursday. We may also restrict bulk orders to working members in the near future. Bulk orders aren't too hard, but they do complicate the system. If you don't think you're comfortable doing the orders for any given week that's completely understandable. Just let Andrew know beforehand and he'll inform everyone.

  1. Check the veggies@thoughtfulfoods.org.au for any bulk orders. I tell people these should be sent by 8pm on Wednesday or it's too late, but I can change the time for particular weeks if that's too late for you.
  2. Go through each person's order and add their items to the Thoughtful Foods order. For example, if we are buying one bag of carrots for the co-op and someone wants to bulk order an extra bag, write down 2 instead of 1 in the cell. (This may sound obvious, but I've often made this mistake and had to go back to find out where I went wrong.)
  3. Work out how much each person has ordered through us. Bulk orders should explicitly state what items (including the codes) they want and the total price, but sometimes you may have to calculate the total yourself (or at least check they got it right).
  4. After each person has their order added to the total, double check that the totals for each person (and thoughtful Foods) adds up to the total on the spreadsheet. It's better to find a mistake now than to realise the order is wrong later on. I find it useful to make up a separate spreadsheet for bulk orders which has the ordered items listed and a column for each person, so I can write the item numbers in the grid, and then have the financial totals listed at the bottom for each person. (Ask Andrew for a copy of this spreadsheet if you'd like one.) This makes it easier to separate the bulk items early on Thursday, as you just have to take out the items which appear on the list.
  5. Lastly, the total price bulk orders cost needs to be calculated. Working members' bulk order totals need to be multiplied by 1.05, and non members' totals need to be multiplied by 1.1. (This is automatically calculated in Andrew's spreadsheet)
  6. Once the bulk orders have been added, and the totals triple checked, the order is ready to be sent off to Back To Eden!

Submitting the order

Send it off to B2E by replying to the email they sent you and attaching your completed form. It’s nice to type a quick ‘hello, here is the order from thoughtful foods for this week, thanks’, but not compulsory. Should be emailed by midnight at the latest, but if it’s earlier we’re more guaranteed to get what we order.

NOTE: don’t forget to attach the file or you may be woken by a phone call from B2E at an ungodly hour of the night!

Checking the order

Drag yourself out of bed by 7am the next morning (ow) and call up B2E to check that they got everything we ordered. Ask to speak to Maurice, the man who deals with our order. If they didn’t manage to get somethings, you’ll have to make a quick decision about what to get instead. They’re pretty helpful with this and can recommend what’s good, tell you what things are like…

Print or make reference sheets

Once the order is confirmed on Thursday morning, go through the vegie list and bulk order sheets to make sure the totals are correct, as they may have changed. If you have access to a printer, print off the vegie list and bulk order forms as they make Thursday much easier. If you don't have access to a printer, you should be fine as long as you write down the following information:

  • The list of people who are ordering each type of box – you can just bring along the written version you picked up on Wednesday.
  • The total Thoughtful Foods should spend on vegetables.
  • The total Thoughtful Foods spent on fruit and vegetables with Michelle.
  • The total Thoughtful Foods should spend at Back To Eden.
  • The total Thoughtful Foods did spend at Back To Eden.
  • The amount of cash we should have in the safe.
  • Details of each bulk order
    • Name
    • Each item and quantities
    • Total price of order if they are a working member (multiply by 1.05)
    • Total price of order if they are a non-working member (multiply by 1.1)
  • The total spent at Back To Eden – the Thoughtful Foods order plus all bulk orders.

Congratulations, you’ve completed the ordering process!

Summer Veggies

Over the summer period (from the end of semester 2 to the start of semester 1), there are few students on campus. The coop generally remains open for all but two weeks of the summer period. We reduce our opening hours to Thursdays only.

To make up for the lack of volunteers over the summer period, and to raise funds for O-Week related costs (mainly printing), we charge a levy of $5 per box. We use a different vegie order form, which reflects the increased prices.

The $5 payments are kept in a special jar in the safe, separate from all other money.

People can recoup this money by volunteering in the shop, at the rate of ½ hour per box. For example, if they've ordered 4 boxes over summer, and then volunteer for 2 hours, they will receive all $20 back.

There is a register kept under the counter to record the money people have paid, and the money we repay them when they volunteer. Each page is split into three sections from left to right: a member's name, then dates they have paid $5, and then dates they've volunteered. Each row is for a member. The latter two sections will have columns for each of the summer weeks. The register is divided into sections of the alphabet, e.g. A-E, and members are listed by first name when they order a vegie box.

If they paid their $5, they get a tick. If they didn't, we write “owing” and withhold their vegie envelope (i.e. don't put it on their box). When they come to collect their box, we then get the $5 they owe and give them their envelope and vegie box.

The week before semester 1 starts is the last week that people can “redeem” their volunteer hours, and get their money back.