The NOFC Buying Club got a mention in the Times-Picayune Living section today in an article on
how to save money on groceries:

“43. Join a food co-op. The New Orleans Food Co-op Buying Club is up and
running, according to its Web site. Members order organic food online
and split the cases as well as the work to sort it into individual
orders. Details are at www.nolafoodcoop.org”

Here’s the link to the full article, we’re on pg 7 of the on-line story.

About 14 people gathered tonight and dined on gazpacho garnished with goat cheese, corn and parsley, a zesty roasted eggplant-creole tomato dip served with blue tortilla chips, a chopped salad of kale, cukes, and avocados in a tangy vinegarette, cold cucumber soup, fresh watermelon, fresh baked brownies, water and red wine. People attended from mid-city, downtown and uptown.

After munching for a while and enjoying some casual conversation, we fired up the projector and walked through how to use the Coopshopper website to place an order. The website is geared to splitting cases of grocery, splitting bulk commodities, refrigerated and frozen goods as well as health and beauty and household goods like toilet paper and cleaners. By shopping for staple items this way, members can usually save a few dollars and also get to meet other folks in their neighborhood.

There was a bit of time afterward where we had a group discussion about growth from a Buying Club to a grocery storefront. Everyone realized that it takes a lot of folks to put a storefront together, so starting small as a buying Club and evolving our club into a cooperative group that owns a grocery store makes sense. We are and will always be a volunteer group, organized by our members.

Many new faces had some good suggestions about marketing the Club and tending our growth. Tim had an interesting idea about running neighborhood based delivery service on bikes pulling trailers. And Lynn spurred a good discussion about marketing to growth.

One good question was about how much interaction members have with each other, since ordering from a website is not exactly a face-to-face exchange. And a few current Buying Club members pointed out that the divvy when the order arrives is always a fun social affair, and that there is a regular monthly get together like tonights pot-luck. Additionally, picking ones staple and case items up at a fun purposeful gathering is usually a lot more nicer than packing a grocery cart till it is too heavy to steer, trying to navigate crowded aisles, unpacking it all at the cash register, repacking it all back, pushing to your conveyance, loading it in your car or bike trailer and unloading it at home and putting it away. I mentioned that I still go to the store for last-minute items or specialty items, but I hardly ever struggle with a load.

The Buying Club now has a new scale to divvy bulk items. Here we asked Armor to test the scale out for us, he rated it high for ease of use, but kind of low for comfort.

Due to summer vacation schedules and a desire to revamp the online storefront, the buying club will not be making an order in late July. After the upcoming June 27th order, the next order will be August 22nd for an expected delivery of August 31st.

The online web store will close after this June 27th order, to be relaunched in mid-August in time for the August 22nd order. We have several great features in the works, as well as a Buying Club manual detailing all the aspects of ordering and receiving local and Ozark items.