Important Notice to All Co-Op Members Regarding Pick-up Procedures

Effective immediately, orders not picked up by 8:00 p.m. on pick-up night will be sent back with producers unless alternative pick-up arrangements were made ahead of time.

Here is more detail and the reasoning behind this policy change:

1 - If you do not pre-arrange for a late pickup (contact Jerry at jerry@wmcoop.com or call the office at 248-2936) and you don't show, your month's order will be returned to the producers.

2 - The producers, because they are taking something back that had already been "sold," lose the sale (this is much more harmful for a producer with a short shelf life than say frozen meat, but potentially significant regardless of product).

3 - This will allow the Co-Op to close its books much more quickly and efficiently (and greatly simplifies the coordination of the back-end... that sounded a lot more interesting than was intended).

Remember, if you can't make it, call us before 7:00pm on pickup night (that's right, 616-248-2936) and we will have a volunteer collect your goods and schedule a time to get your on Thursday or Friday. Sorry, but this really cleans up the workings and the board appreciates your cooperation.

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As you are all aware, it has been our practice to hold those orders not picked up (that we were NOT notified about ahead of time) and we would track you down and hope you would honor your commitment in reserving the goods. We always wanted to err on the side of the user (and assure the sale for the producers), but the Co-Op was usually stuck with 2-5 orders per month. We ate the cost because we wanted the cash to go to the producer on the hope that we would get the money down the road. We have now reached a point where we are victims of our own success. Now that we are doing higher numbers, the leftovers that need chasing down have also grown proportionally (last month almost 20, of which all but two were picked up, but at great time/effort). The aftermath of pickup creates more time and effort (that again!) that the actual purchasing cycle and pickup itself.

Thanks for your understanding.