Changes at "Collective Purchasing (Sam B)"
Title (English)
- +Collective Purchasing (Sam B)
Description (English)
- +Collective purchasing is when a group of citizens, neighbors, consumers come together and order something in bulk quantity to get better pricing — typically from a producer, rather than a store. This can save 50%+ off costs at the store — and get goods/food shipped directly to areas that have lower access.
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- +For example, a farm in Virginia sells healthy pasture eggs at $3.50/dozen on a $500 order. Similar eggs are typically $9+ in the store. If we organized a group order, people could get 3 dozen eggs for the price of 1 at the store. We can do this for laundry detergent, produce, school supplies, and anything we need.
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- +Why should people be excited?
- +More affordability by doing things together! (a.k.a. Mutual aid!)
- +We could also incorporate a "pay what you can" sliding scale — so people who can afford to pay more or less can do so, while everyone still saves and benefits from participating in the group order.
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- +What this needs to move forward (or what NOVASEN could do):
- +I think it could be really interesting to use VASEN's $500 meal stipend for a group order like this — get the eggs at $3.50/dozen, and ask people to pay what they can. It might even work out that the $500 gets returned, in which case we could do it on a recurring basis!
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- +Depending on what people want, we can also do this for anything else. We have a great fermenter in NoVA that will sell kimchi, sauerkrauts, and probiotic foods to us for 60% less than the grocery store (in bulk). Also have price lists for detergents, farm produce, sustainable toilet paper and paper towels, etc.
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