We started our first bulk food buying club order in August 2019. Thanks to the Carrot Cache Grant from the Carrot Commons  that we received in February 2019, we were able to purchase the materials to start the bulk food buying club. It also helped us to to capture some of the shortfalls we encountered while trying to set up a workable system.

Trust me when I say that the first iteration came with a few bumps and roadblocks. Thanks to a member of our community, we managed to have a robust spreadsheet that helped with calculation and keeping track of people’s orders. Alongside some volunteers in the community, we were able to take orders, contact our supplier, and set up our whole operation.

It was also thanks to the Cabbagetown Youth Centre that we were able to get the space and to partner with Charmyne on providing some bulk food ingredients for the local school lunch program.

For our first ever order, we purchased rolled oats, pink Himalayan salt, coconut milk, french lentils, and long grained brown rice. Overall, our members seemed really happy with the quality of the organic ingredients and comment on its affordable cost, especially the salt! It was a learned experience for the community as we chatted about how to use the ingredients and even learning about how much 500 grams of an item actually is.

It was a lot of work to get it together, but we have so many different ideas on how to make it run more efficiently next time and we can’t wait for the second order. Huge thanks to our volunteers and community members for your help and your participation in our first ever order!