Cross Timbers Food Cooperative Producer Operating Procedures

Table of Contents

Acting as the agent of producer members, the Cross Timbers Food Cooperative posts and publicizes the products the producers have for sale, receive orders, provides a way for products to be delivered to other members of the cooperative, collects from the customers and forwards the payments to the producers. Acting as the agent for customer members, we provide them a catalog of available local food products that includes information about how and where the product was grown or processed. We receive their orders and notify the appropriate producers, arrange for the food to be delivered, receive and process their payments. For both producer and customer members, we provide a basic screening of products and producers based on our published parameters, and education and training regarding the use and the advantages of local foods.

For some of our producer members, we are agents that facilitate farm gate sales of their products. For other producer members, we facilitate off-farm sales or sales of processed products.

The essential business of the cooperative is to provide a marketplace where willing buyers and sellers can meet. At no time does the cooperative ever have title to any of the products. We have no inventory. The products that go through our distribution system are owned either by the producer, or by the customer who purchases "title" to the product from the producer. All complaints should first be brought to the attention of the producer, unless it is a situation where the cooperative itself is at fault (such as broken eggs due to poor packing). If a successful resolution can not be found by the affected producer and customer members, the cooperative's arbitration procedure can be invoked.

GENERAL

  1. Only members of the cooperative may buy or sell through our cooperative marketplace.
  2. Acting as the agent of producer members, the Cross Timbers Food Cooperative posts on the internet and publicizes the products its producer members have for sale within its marketplace of members. We receive orders, provide a way for products to be delivered between members of the cooperative, collect payment from the customers and forward the payments to the producers. The cooperative may advance payment to the producers if working capital is available for this purpose. For some of our producer members, we are agents that facilitate farm gate sales of their products. For other producer members, we facilitate off-farm sales or sales of processed products.
  3. Acting as the agent for customer members, we provide them a catalog of available local food products that includes information about how and where the product was grown or processed. We receive their orders and notify the appropriate producers, arrange for the food to be delivered, receive and process their payments. For both producer and customer members, we provide a basic screening of products and producers based on our published parameters, and education and training regarding the use and the advantages of local foods and the core values of the cooperative.
  4. The essential business of the cooperative is to provide a marketplace where willing buyers and sellers who are members of the cooperative can meet. At no time does the cooperative ever have title to any of the products. We have no inventory. The products that go through our distribution system are owned either by the producer, or by the customer who purchases "title" to the product from the producer. All complaints should first be brought to the attention of the producer, unless it is a situation where the cooperative itself is at fault (such as broken eggs due to poor packing or products delivered incorrectly). If a successful resolution can not be found by the affected producer and customer members, the cooperative's arbitration procedure can be invoked.
  5. All producer members are responsible for reading and complying with the operating procedures of the cooperative. Producer members are welcome to make suggestions to make these procedures more efficient and understandable.
  6. The most efficient way for us to communicate is by the internet. While members without internet access will be able to sell and order through the co-op, those with access are encouraged to conduct all co-op business through our member website. When you join the cooperative, you will be assigned a user name and password so you can access the members only pages of our web sites. You will also be assigned a member number. All members will need to keep track of their member number. Internet users will need to keep track of their user name and password.
  7. From time to time we will have events to highlight the great tastes of locally grown and processed foods. Producer participation is not mandatory, but it will be to your advantage to participate. This will give you a chance to meet your potential customers and showcase your foods and products.
  8. The cooperative will advance payment to the producers for their products at the time they are delivered on Delivery Day, unless there is an unresolved discrepancy in the amount you should be paid, as long as the cooperative has the working capital to do this. If the cooperative does not have sufficient working capital to advance payment, then payment to producers will be made on receipt of payment from the customer members. Producers who ship their products will be paid by mail, unless other arrangements are made.. Producers will only be paid for products ordered by customers. The Cross Timbers Food Cooperative reserves the right to refuse to accept delivery for products that are not what customers ordered, or which are spoiled or contaminated or otherwise not acceptable. The Cross Timbers Food Cooperative does not maintain any inventory of goods to be sold.
  9. Any customer complaints or requests for refunds or return of merchandise will be referred directly to the responsible producer. Each producer will provide us a written statement of their policies for returns. In the event of a dispute between a customer and a producer, the matter shall be referred to an arbitration committee.
  10. These procedures are established to benefit the common good of the cooperative's members. The more members we have, the more critical it is that we achieve near 100% compliance with these procedures. At present and for the foreseeable future the cooperative administration and management personnel are all volunteers. By following these procedures, we minimize the demands on any individual volunteer's time. This is necessary for the long-term sustainability of this business enterprise.
  11. To log onto our system, go to: www.crosstimberscoop.org/members. You should BOOKMARK this address so you can easily find it when you need it. Sign in with your USER NAME and PASSWORD. If you don't have that info handy, send an email to members@crosstimberscoop.org and ask for your info again.
  12. CORE VALUES: The core values of The Cross Timbers Food Cooperative are social justice, environmental sustainability, and economic viability. Each of these values are necessary for the proper operation of this cooperative business.

PRODUCTS THAT MAY BE SOLD THROUGH THE COOPERATIVE

  1. Producers may only sell products they themselves have grown or processed. Nobody can buy wholesale from someone else and then retail through our service, unless they are buying ingredients for processed foods. If ingredients are bought, value must be added to the product by the producer. Simply repackaging the ingredients is not adding value. For example, you can sell tomatoes that you grow, but not tomatoes that you buy from somebody else. You can, however, buy tomatoes from someone, make salsa with those tomatoes, and sell that salsa through the cooperative. You can buy flour or cornmeal and make bread or tortillas to sell, but you can't buy bread from someone else and sell it through the cooperative.
  2. No GMO foods or products may be sold through the cooperative. No meat, poultry or egg products from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) may be sold through the cooperative, nor may they be used as ingredients in processed foods. Animals may not be treated with bovine growth hormone nor may routine antibiotics be used in feeds. Our assumption is that supermarket meats originate in CAFOs, so meat, poultry, or egg products should be bought directly from farmers or local aggregators. They do not have to be bought from cooperative members, although some members may find this as an added benefit of your product.
  3. Meats to be sold through the cooperative and delivered via our transportation system must be processed in a USDA or state licensed and inspected plant. Each package must have either the USDA or state inspection stamp. Meats processed by custom butchers, whose packages are stamped, "Not for sale," may not be delivered by the cooperative. Any meat packages brought to delivery day stamped "not for sale" will be returned to the producer.
  4. Sales for live animals may be booked through the cooperative. The producer can then, as a courtesy, arrange with the customer to deliver the animal to the processing plant of the customer's choice. If the processing plant is a USDA or state inspected facility, the meat may be delivered by the cooperative. if the processing plant is a custom butcher, the producer and customer will have to make their own arrangements for delivery.
  5. Standards for processed or prepared foods
    1. Processed and prepared foods that are offered for sale shall be submitted with a complete list of ingredients. Ingredients that originate in north Texas shall be noted. The producer should estimate the north Texas content of the product.
    2. Producers shall not include CAFO meats, poultry, or eggs or derivatives from them as ingredients in their processed products.
    3. Genetically modified animals, plants, seeds, grains, or fruits shall not knowingly be used as ingredients.
    4. Customer members of The Cross Timbers Food Cooperative are interested in local foods produced with sustainable practices that show good stewardship of the environment. Consequently, they have a preference for organically or naturally produced foods that originate in north Texas and will be much more likely to buy these foods, which they regard as superior to the foods offered by supermarkets.
  6. All new products from new or existing producer members must be reviewed by the Compliance and Standards Committee to ensure that they are eligible for sale through the cooperative. To review your product(s), this information is required:
    1. A statement regarding the geographic location of the origin of your products and that you are the grower or producer. In the statement, the producer must give the exact location(s) where the crop(s) was or were grown, animals were raised, or processed product was prepared.
    2. A statement regarding your production practices, which explains whether you use herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers in producing the product. No animal products or byproducts may be used in animal feeds of meats sold through the cooperative. If your product is certified organic, include a copy of the organic certification.
    3. For processed products, a list of ingredients, note any of north Texas origin and estimate the north Texas content of the product, and a statement regarding the processing practices. Also include the location of the kitchen or processing facility for each product.
    4. The information regarding new products or changed products must be sent by email to info@crosstimberscoop.org If you do not have email, they should be mailed to the committee at P.O. Box 565, Denton, Texas 76202.
    5. Once the product is approved, follow the procedure described below to actually list your product in our database for access by our members. Getting the product approved, and then having it appear in our database of currently available products, are two different steps.
  7. To protect the integrity of our marketing system, the cooperative reserves the right to verify the production claims and geographic production location of everything sold through our marketplace.
  8. Each producer has a page (or pages) in the on-line Customer Handbook and information on our website and in the cooperative's price and product lists for their product(s). Each producer also has a page to introduce his/herself and tell the story of his/her farming operation and products.
  9. Producers set their own prices, and receive the full retail price they set for their products, less the cooperatives shipping and handling fee for producers (presently set at 5%). The charges the cooperative makes for its services are always under review in consideration of our expenses. The cooperative is not in a position to lose money on its operations, so the financial structure of the cooperative may be changed from time to time.
  10. We have a monthly order/delivery cycle. As membership and sales increase, we will increase the frequency, first to twice a month, then to weekly.
  11. You may book orders in advance through our service. For example, meat producers may take orders for meat in advance of the actual dates the animals will be delivered, to allow appropriate time for processing of the meat or poultry. Vegetable producers can book sales for the following season from customers interested in larger amounts of produce, for example, people who do home canning may be interested in buying vegetables by the bushel, and this can be arranged in advance.
  12. The cooperative can act as the order and delivery agent for customers buying live animals directly from producers that will be processed at a custom butcher. If the cooperative has to pick up the meat directly from the processor as agent for the customer member, an extra cooperative charge may be added for this purpose.
  13. Producer members must comply with any relevant health codes or agricultural laws regarding direct sales of farm and food products.

PROCEDURE FOR LISTING YOUR PRODUCTS ON OUR PRICE/PRODUCT LIST

  1. To offer your product for sale through the cooperative, we need to know everything a customer needs to know in order to make an informed decision about your product. If you enter products on-line, you will be prompted for the relevant information. If you e-mail, fax, or mail product listings for us to enter, we need:
    1. Name of the product.
    2. Basic description of the product. If the approximate size, weight or contents are not clear from the name of the product, list those details here. If it is a processed item, include a list of the ingredients and estimate the north Texas content of the ingredients.
    3. Category or subcategory that it should be listed under. If we do not have an existing category and/or subcategory, please give us some guidance on how the product would be categorized.
    4. If it is a package of several items, the approximate (or exact, whichever the case may be) number of items in the package should be listed.
    5. The price, the pricing unit (e.g. whatever comes after the "per" in $ per ____), and the ordering unit (when the customer orders, they will order number of ______). Also, we need to know if the item has a random weight - the customer will not know the price until you provide a weight for it after the item is ordered.
      • EXAMPLE 1: You are selling a 5 pound bag of wheat for $10.00. The price is $10.00. The pricing unit is "5 pound bag" (because you are selling at $10.00 per 5 pound bag). The ordering unit is also "5 pound bag" because the customer orders by the number of 5 pound bags that they wish to buy. This item is not considered random weight because the bags always weigh the same and the customer knows the final price when it is ordered. Notice in this example that even though the flour ends up costing $2 per pound, you would not list as $2 per pound because you are only selling 5 pound bags that cost $10.
      • EXAMPLE 2: You are selling a bag of ground beef. The bag weights range between .75 and 1.25 pounds and you sell the meat at $4 per pound. The price depends on the weight but you want the customer orders the number of bags, not the number of pounds because you do not package it in exactly 1 pound bags. In this case, your price would be $4, your pricing unit would be "pound", and your ordering unit would be "bag". This is a random weight product because the price cannot be pre-determined by the customer. It can only be determined after you (the producer) enter the weight.
      • EXAMPLE 3: You are selling packages of chicken breasts. The package varies in weight from a little under 2 pounds to a little over 2 pounds. However, you always charge the same price per package ($6.00). In this case, price is $6.00, the pricing unit is "package", and the ordering unit is package. This is not a random weight product because the customer knows the price in advance.
      • EXAMPLE 4. You are selling tomatoes at $3.00 per pound. The customer can order by the pound. If the customer orders 3 pounds, you have decided that you will always provide a minimum of 3 pounds but will not charge for exact weight but instead charge for the weight ordered. So if the customer orders 3 pounds and you end up giving them 3.1 pounds, you still only charge $9.00. In this case, the price is $3.00. The pricing unit is "pound" and the ordering unit is "pound". This is not a random weight product because the customer can determine what the price will be in advance. Modifying this example slightly, if you did decide that you want to charge for exact weight (e.g. charge $9.30 for the 3.1 pound bag) then all of the other information would be the same, but now this would be a random weight product because when the customer orders 3 pounds, he/she has no way of determining the final price which depends upon your weighing the item).
    6. If it is a random weight product (the price depends on the weight), we need to know the approximate range of weights. Example: roast, sold by a package of one roast, price is $4/lb., the roasts weigh between 2 and 4 pounds. If it is a variable weight product which is sold for a single standard price rather than a price based on a random weight, you should have listed the range of weights in the basic description so the customers know what they are getting. The customer needs this information to know how much to order.
    7. Whether the product is certified organic.
    8. In general, you should use descriptive terms (though not too long) for the ordering and pricing units. Some standard terms will be "pound," "bag," "package;" but in many cases it will be worthwhile to be even more descriptive. For instance, if you are selling T-bone steaks 1 to a package at $8/pound, then instead of package you could put steak as the ordering unit. In this case the pricing unit would be pound. However, if the package had two steaks, you would either put "package" or "package of 2 steaks" as the ordering unit. Any product that the customer orders by the item can also get descriptive pricing and ordering units. For instance, if you are selling by the individual tomato, ear of corn, squash, jar or jelly, etc. then you could list "tomato", "ear", "squash", or "jar" as the ordering unit. The pricing units could also be listed as "tomato," "ear", "squash," or "jar," or you could just use the generic "each" in the pricing unit. It may be helpful when you choose these units to think of the way this information will appear on your product listing and on invoices. Your ordering unit will be displayed on your product/price list as follows "Order number of ___________s." So if you choose "steak" as your pricing unit, your listing will say "Order number of steaks". On the customer invoice, the ordering unit will show up under the quantity heading with the numbrt ordered and the ordering unit (e.g., 1 steak, or 2 steaks). For pricing unit, the unit you choose will show up on the product list and on the invoice as price/pricing unit. So for the T-bone above this would be $8/pound because pound was the pricing unit.
    9. If the product is one that is being sold in advance but will not actually be delivered until a future order cycle, let us know the date that it will be delivered. This must be the date of an existing co-op delivery. If you are not sure about the future delivery date, please contact us to discuss this. If this is an item where you will be setting up more than one payment, you will need to contact us to discuss this. Also, contact us if the item will be delivered directly to the customer by you and not through the co-op so that we can help you work out the details of listing the item. Contact us at info@crosstimberscoop.org.
    10. The sales description of the product, and the production practices and location for the product.
  2. Producers are responsible for entering this information for their products. The cooperative will do this if the producer does not have internet access, but we reserve the right to levy a charge for this service.
  3. When this information is entered into our database, the product is assigned a unique ID number. Please keep track of the product ID numbers for your products. Any time you need to change that product, you need the specific product ID number for that product. . If you are able to use the internet, you can access any of your listed products from the price lists at shop.crosstimberscoop.org. If you are logging in to our system and updating/adding new products yourself, you will be able to see product numbers for products that were on older price lists.
  4. If you are no longer selling a product, please do not delete it from the database. instead, simply mark the product so it will not be displayed.
  5. If you want to change an item from having a standard price to being a random weight item, create a new product for the random weight version of the product.
  6. If you are not able to make your own changes via the internet, here is the information we need to change a product entry in our database:
    1. the product ID code
    2. what you want to change or do with the product, i.e. remove the product from the next month's order, change the price, change the description.
  7. If the cooperative is making the changes to your product listing, any changes to your product or price list or deletions, are due the last day of the month for the following month's order. New products must be submitted to the Compliance and Standards committee by the 15th of the month for sale during the following month.

THE MONTHLY WORK OF THE COOPERATIVE

  1. Each month's work begins in the previous month, when any changes to a producer's products or prices are due to the cooperative. New products must be submitted to the Compliance and Standards Committee by the 15th of the month for sale the following month. New products that have been approved by the Compliance and Standards Committee, as well as changes to or deletions of existing products, can be entered by the producer in our on-line database. Sometime after the close of each order, you will be notified when the database is open for the following months change?s. The deadline for you to enter these changes is the 1st Saturday of the month of the order cycle. If you are not able to enter your own changes, then you must submit your changes as explained above. After your product(s) has been approved by the Standards committee, you are then responsible for entering it into the database or arranging for the cooperative central administrative team to do this work for you.. The deadline for giving us changes that you will not be able to enter yourself is the last day of the month before the order cycle begins. Because any changes we have to make on your behalf are due earlier than if you make the changes yourself, it will be critical that you make sure you can log on and make your own changes prior to the end of the month. That way, if you find that you are not able to use the system and you want to send us your changes then you will not miss the deadline. Note that any changes made will not appear on the public or members website until everything has been reviewed by the cooperative administrative team, usually on the first day of order week (first or second Saturday of the month).
  2. In months with four Saturdays, the monthly Order Desk opens on the first Saturday of each month, and closes at 10 PM on the 2nd Thursday, and the groceries are delivered on the 3rd Saturday. In months where there are five Saturdays, this schedule is sometimes delayed a week, so the Order Desk opens the 2nd Saturday, closes the 3rd Saturday, and the groceries are delivered the 4th Saturday. The time from when the Order Desk opens to when it closes is called "order week."
  3. You can view the on-going progress of your orders by logging into the cooperative's membership site site (www.crosstimberscoop.org/members) but customers may change their orders (add or delete items, change quantities, etc.) until the close of the order desk. Do not consider your orders as "final" until you receive an email, fax, or phone call from us that the orders are final. If you print your orders early, you may lose business. At the close of order week (generally 10 PM on the 2nd or 3rd Saturday of the month), the cooperative will notify you that your orders are ready for downloading or printing. Generally this is early the next morning. If you do not have internet access, we can fax or telephone your orders. However, if you do not hear from us, it is your responsibility to contact us to get a copy of your orders.
  4. When you check your orders at the close of a monthly's order week, there will be links for your orders sorted by PRODUCT, and by CUSTOMER. You will only see your orders.
  5. If customers have ordered products from you that have random weights necessary for determining product prices, you will see that information on your invoice. When you have that customer's information, enter it in the appropriate box and press the UPDATE button next to that entry. You can update either at the PRODUCT sort page or the CUSTOMER sort page. Both pages update the master database.
  6. If you run out of inventory on a particular product, notify the customer immediately (email if they have it is fine) so that the customer can choose a substitution from another producer if you don't have a substitute to suggest. If customers have ordered products that are out of stock, there are several ways to handle the situation: (A) "First come, first serve," in which case, look at the SORT BY PRODUCT list because the orders are listed there in the order in which we received them; (B) Contact the customer and offer a substitution. (The customer contact info will be on your list of orders.)
  7. If your customer accepts a substitution, send an email to info@crosstimberscoop.org. with the details of the substitution. We need to know the customer's name, the product originally ordered (its product ID number), and the product you are substituting (its product ID number). Please state that the customer has accepted the substitution.
  8. Please be prompt in completing these invoices, especially if you have an out of stock situation. If you do not have the product, other producers may have it available. Customers expect to be notified if you are out of a product or can't deliver it, and you will preserve your customer relationship with them if you are prompt in telling them that you are out of an item so that they can order a substitute from either you or somebody else. Some customers are ordering most of their family's food from the cooperative, and if an item is not delivered, and they are not able to order a substitute, then that creates a problem for them. Don't alienate customers by waiting until the last minute to discover that you are out of a product.
  9. Once you have entered any weights for random weight items, and marked any items out of stock, and updated each item (you can only update one item at a time), review the overall invoice. All your changes should be saved and all item prices should now be correct. If all the information is there, you should have a total dollar amount at the bottom of your invoice that reflects the amount that you will receive from the Co-op for this order. If this total (or any of the individual prices of items) is incorrect, please contact us right away at info@crosstimberscoop.org.. In the subject line of your e-mail, put "Invoice Error" and your producer name. This needs to be resolved prior to delivery day because prices listed on this invoice also feed into the individual customer invoices. Therefore, if the prices we have for your products are wrong, we will not collect the correct amount from customers. Our ability to pay you the right amount is dependent upon our ability to collect the right amounts from the customer members. After an order has closed, we can't change a price until the next price list is posted. We can post it as out of stock, but changing prices during delivery week takes too much cooperative administrative time. Once customers have ordered a product at a particular price, you can't raise the price. You could lower it, but you will have to send the customer a refund directly, as this takes too much cooperative administrative time.
  10. After you have reviewed your order, entered all your weights and out of stocks, and determined that your invoice is correct and you will in fact be able to deliver all items on the invoice (except those marked out of stock), there will be a button to click to notify us that your order and delivery is confirmed.. The confirmations should be made no later than 9 PM on the Thursday before Delivery Day, so the customer members can have a full day to check their online invoices and so that we can prepare the invoices for the customers, print them and the producer invoices, and have them ready for Delivery Day on Saturday. If you are making any last minute changes to an already confirmed order, we need them no later than 9 PM on the night before Delivery Day. After 9 PM, you will not be able to make changes to your online orders, because the invoices will be in the process of being printed. But we prefer that you call us anyway, and not wait until your delivery the next day to tell us there was a problem. After 9 PM we hand adjust invoices and it would be better to make those before the delivery work starts.
  11. 9 PM on Thursday before Delivery Day is also the final deadline for any changes or substitutions that you need for us to make on your behalf. As a practical matter, the sooner you can confirm your order or notify us of any changes, the better it is for all concerned, as customers can log on and check the progress of their order.
  12. If you are unable to use our system to update the random weights and out of stock items, send your updates to info@crosstimberscoop.org. no later than 9 PM on the Thursday before delivery day. Once we have entered your changes we will ask you to review your invoice and confirm that all weights, out of stocks, and your invoice is correct. Even if you don't have any weights or out of stocks to enter, you must confirm your order either through clicking the confirmation button or e-mailing your confirmation to info@crosstimberscoop.org..
  13. All questions about customer orders should go directly to the customer. Customer contact information is on your order page that is sorted by CUSTOMER.
  14. CHECK YOUR EMAIL several times during Order and Delivery weeks, in case there are any Delivery Day issues that need to be addressed.

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR PRODUCT FOR DELIVERY THROUGH THE OKLAHOMA FOOD COOPERATIVE

  1. The steps to preparing your product for delivery are: Package individual orders, include an invoice to the customer, label the product(s) properly, pre-sort by regional sorting hub. These steps are explained more fully in the rest of this section.
  2. Orders are delivered packaged for individual customers. Do not deliver 50 pounds of bulk lettuce and expect us to divide it up between your customers for you.
  3. The order should be packaged securely. Products are transported from your location to the sorting hub, where they are handled, sorted, and transported again to customers. The packaging of your product must be able to protect your product during transportation, sorting, and delivery.
  4. Each order should have an invoice to the customer with it. You can use the Producer Invoice by customer sort for each customer's invoice by simply printing it and then cutting it apart for your various customers. If you have your own invoicing system, you can use that.
  5. If a customer has ordered several products from you, you can put all of those products in one bag, box, or container, or you can deliver them as separate items.
  6. Each bag, box, container, or other product for a customer member must be labeled with the the first and last name of the member receiving the product and their customer delivery code, the name of the producer, and what the product is. You can use your own label or you can write this information on a box or container (but not on a plastic bag), or you can use the label documents we provide you at the membership page of our website. If you are making your own labels, the information you need is on the customer sort of your Cross Timbers Food Co-op order page.
  7. After you have given final confirmation of your orders, prepared Cross Timbers Food Co-op labels are available for use on individual products.
    1. If you are putting all of a customers orders in one bag, box, or container, use the Producer Invoice by customer sort as the label and securely tape it to the container. Cut it apart to separate the various customers' information. If you are attaching the entire order's document in this way, you can use the customer sort as both the INVOICE and the LABEL. To make these documents into labels, you can print them on plain paper, cut them apart, and tape them (using strong packing tape) to the product or container. Or you can print them on label stock and peel them off and stick them onto the container. Do not use scotch tape or other small light tapes to attach labels or invoices to packages.
    2. If you are sending products as separately packed items, use the individual product label provided in your Cross Timbers Food Co-op member area.
    3. If you are sending a member's products in several containers with more than one product for that member inside, attach each of the relevant individual product labels to the outside of that box.
    4. Customer labels should not be on the outside of any box or container that contains orders for more than one customer. Those containers, bags, or boxes should be labeled with your producer name with customer products inside.
    5. You can put another label on your product, such as weight and price labels for frozen meats, your own unique producer label or tag, etc.
  8. If you are sending your product in plastic grocery bags, make the label a tag and tie it to the plastic bag, or print the label on label stock and stick it to the bag. Staples usually don't work well with plastic bags and paper labels, so we require a tag. Do not write information on a plastic grocery bag and expect us to be able to decipher it. Marker inks do not adhere well to plastic grocery bags.
  9. After you have packaged your customer's products for delivery, you must pack and deliver them pre-sorted, and labeled with your producer name and the number of boxes. If there were two boxes, it would be "1 of 2".
  10. The bag or container can then be combined in another larger container (such as an ice chest or a larger box) with other containers. That container must be marked with your producer name.
  11. If you have some products which are frozen or refrigerated, and some products for a customer that are dry goods or otherwise non-refrigerated, they should be delivered in separate containers, and frozen and refrigerated items should arrive in ice chests. Frozen items must be hard frozen, and refrigerated items must be cold to the touch.

DELIVERY DAY PROCEDURES

  1. Delivery Day is the 3rd Saturday of the month, except in months where there are five Saturdays, in which case the delivery day may be the 4th Saturday of the month.
  2. The producers are responsible for getting their properly prepared, packaged, and labeled products to the Denton sorting location by 12 Noon on Delivery Day.
  3. There are three ways of delivering products to us:
    1. You can deliver your product yourself to 210 E. Hickory St, Denton (this is where we combine the producer orders to make the customer orders).
    2. You will know your orders a week in advance, so non-perishables could be shipped by UPS or the Post Office. If you ship products, ship them to Secret Headquarters, attention: Cross Timbers Food Cooperative, 210 E. Hickory, Denton, Texas 76202. Mailed items must reach us before noon on delivery day or they will be returned to you. We are not able to accept items after this deadline because we will have no way of getting them to the customer. In future months the location of the Cross Timbers Food Co-op sorting site and mailing address may change, so always reference current information for the delivery place and postal mailing address.
    3. Producers outside of the Denton area may be able to have their products picked up. Contact us for the current status of our pickup and delivery network. Do not assume that someone will contact you and please do not wait until the last minute to arrange a ride for your products.
  4. If you want to deliver bulk product for us to divide among the individual customers, we can do that, but we will have to charge a fee (to be negotiated), depending on how much labor is involved on our end. The cooperative does not presently own scales certified for use in commerce, so any division we make of your product could not be by weight.
  5. If for any reason as you package your orders you find you are unable to make delivery to the Denton sorting location (e.g. in the event of a truck breakdown or family emergency that would prevent you from making it to Delivery Day), please mark everything as "out of stock" at the cooperative member page and contact us immediately.

CONTACTING THE COOPERATIVE

The cooperative has a series of email addresses. Information or questions should be directed to the appropriate email address. The emails go to different members of the cooperative administrative team. For the cooperative to operate efficiently, it is important for you to send your email to the correct email address. If you send everything to (for example) customer@crosstimberscoop.org , your answer will be delayed because it will have to be forwarded to the appropriate volunteer.

To log in to the Members area and access your orders or invoice or make changes, additions or deletions to your product listing(s) - www.crosstimberscoop.org/members/