Why You Should Start a Food Buying Club This Year

There is a large, very active network of natural and holistic-oriented families here in San Diego, and one of the things that many of us do together is buy stuff cooperatively. Whether it is organic cotton kids clothes, non-toxic shampoos and deodorants, or a half-side of grass-fed beef, we moms group up to order anything that can be had more cheaply by buying it together. You can too.

Between rising food and oil prices and a depressed economy, organic, pasture-raised, and healthy, natural products are more expensive than ever. But you can make them substantially cheaper by throwing in with your friends and family to buy in bulk quantities. If you have a large enough group to meet the minimum order price on a relatively regular basis, you can set up a wholesale account with a lot of different natural product and organic food vendors, both local and out-of-state. This can save you hundreds—or even thousands of dollars a year!

Some of the benefits of buying clubs include:

Starting with just five or six families, the buying clubs here in San Diego eventually grew large enough to need tools like Google Groups to communicate and Google Docs spreadsheets to place and keep track of orders among dozens of families. Paypal became invaluable for ensuring that members pay for their orders in a timely fashion.

Eventually, we needed some administrative leadership and some formal rules to keep everything organized and accountable. Whether the leadership is formal or informal, static or rotating, paid or voluntary depends on what works for your group.

Ultimately we have grown to need a food scale and a few used, deep-chest freezers (bought off of Craigslist) to hold orders in someone’s garage until they can be picked up by members. Never buy a new freezer: There are simply too many used ones in perfect working condition to keep out of the landfill!

While I don’t think we want our buying clubs to grow so large that we need a storefront to hold all the products, if you wanted to go in that direction, know that most co-op grocery stores got their start as little garage and kitchen table operations like ours.

I’m proud to say that between gardening, buying clubs and farmer’s markets, we barely need the grocery store anymore—and we certainly never pay retail “Whole Paycheck” prices for expensive things like non-toxic sunscreen, organic almond flour or pasture-raised poultry.

And as an added benefit, we have the satisfaction of knowing that most of the money we spend on food, housewares and personal care is going to great small businesses and nearby family farms and ranches, instead of huge, unaccountable, corporate chains.

Once you get your buying club together, you’ll be amazed at the deals you can negotiate simply by having a group large and organized enough to regularly buy in bulk.

Here are some of the great national and regional vendors where our buying clubs have set up wholesale accounts:

• Azure Standard – From organic cereals, pasta, and yogurt, to bulk nuts and produce, if it’s a packaged food you’ve seen at a health food store, Azure probably has it. Only available in certain parts of the country.
• Frontier – Frontier is a national co-op that provides buying clubs with teas, coffees, spices, bulk food items, personal care items, household items, culinary accessories, vitamins, and supplements. They have thousands of Fair Trade items and carry all the major, natural brands like Frontier, Simply Organic, Aura Cacia, Ecover, Seventh Generation, Dr Bronner, and more.
• Benefit Your Life – Natural and gluten-free foods, including bulk, unpasteurized, organic almond flower at the best 25-pound price I’ve seen anywhere.
• Mountain Rose Herbs – An outstanding source for any and every type of herb, spice, tea, essential oil or traditional fat you might need for cooking or natural medicine. Their vast selection can’t be beat anywhere on the net, and their prices are great, even at retail. Working with a co-op to order wholesale is even better!
• Green Pastures Fermented Cod Liver Oil – Your grandmother was right: Cod liver oil is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can add to your diet to ensure good health. If you ferment it in the old, Norwegian tradition the way Green Pastures does it, then it is even better.
• Wilderness Family Naturals – Sustainably harvested and produced coconut oils, coconut milk and cream, chocolate spreads and nut butters, sprouted nuts and seeds, soy- and canola-free mayonnaise and salad dressings, REAL wild rice, and more. One of my favorite traditional food stores!
• Ancient Organics Ghee – Yummy ghee. Mmmmmm.
• Green Virgin Products – Bulk soap nuts and mineral salt deodorant stones.
• Conscious Cookery – Organic beans, lentils, grains, soup blends and teas.
• Shelton’s Poultry – Pasture-raised, antibiotic and hormone free chicken and turkey. West Coast only.
• J&J Grassland Beef - A grassfed beef CSA with yummy steaks and really nice ranchers. Southern California only.
• Glacier Grown – Free-range bison by the half and whole animal (though butchered for easy sharing), raw honey. Southern California only.

We also bulk order a lot from small businesses, farms and ranches in our county:

• organic produce
• citrus, tropical fruit and avocados
• raw vegan ice cream
• raw honey
• raw milk and cheese
• olives and olive oil
• pasture-raised pork
• grass-fed beef
• pasture-raised chickens and eggs
• duck eggs
• fish and seafood
• stainless steel food tiffins
• diapers (both cloth and “eco-friendlier” disposables)

As a group, we also regularly go in together on online orders for clothing, housewares and more, whenever a member has a good coupon or free shipping. Clothing and toy swaps are relatively common too. We keep a member business list so that we can hire each other for services before we open the Yellow Pages to hire a stranger. But the best part for me, as a full-time mom and caregiver, is that order pick-up days are often lively social occasions and multi-family playdates.

It’s amazing how social, sustainable, frugal, and fulfilled you can be when you start working together and sharing resources with your friends and neighbors.

Starting or joining a natural food buying club this year just makes good economic and environmental sense. It can also help connect you with the farmers and food produced locally in your region, and build a strong sense of community and connection in your neighborhood, social group and family. What do you have to lose?

Here are some additional resources to get you started:

• Food Co-ops vs. Buying Clubs – Sustainable Table
• A Cooperative Food-Buying Club Primer
• Join or Start Your Own Buying Club – Organic Consumer’s Association

_{Shared with Sunday School, Monday Mania, Make Your Own Monday, Homemaker Monday, Real Food 101, Fat Tuesdays, Teach Me Tuesdays, Frugal Tuesday Tips, Real Food Wednesdays, Healthy 2day Wednesday, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Whole Food Wednesdays, Creative Juice, The Mommy Club, Your Green Resource, Simple Lives Thursday, It’s a Keeper, Frugal Friday, Inspiration Friday, Fight Back Fridays, Freaky Friday, Fresh Bites Friday, and the Weekend Bloggy Linkup}