QUICK GUIDE TO THE NEW FOOD CLUB

By: Robynn de Klerk

Have you heard of Harvest Club? It’s a new food club for Stanford and Hermanus, which is a great way to support small farmers and local food makers and gain access to healthier foods and better products without all the excess delivery miles, packaging and the usual retail costs. The feedback has been so positive that our number of members (and our local suppliers) are mushrooming! After launching in May, we’d already grown to 340 members by mid-July.

Harvest Club works like a group-buying club, except that it’s free to join and you can simply order any items you want through the online shop which opens for orders a few days each month. Products available include grass-fed meats, organic dairy, chef-cooked meals, nutrient-dense foods, health products, quality oils, pantry staples, and more.

After the shop order window closes, orders get collated and coordinated with the suppliers, who then have a week to harvest, pack and deliver, ready for you to collect your goodies from our collection ‘Market Days’ in Stanford and in Hermanus, usually on the last Thursday and Friday of the month respectively.

Here are some easy steps to follow to join our food club:

Step 1: Get yourself signed up

You can learn more about the food club, how it all works, and how to get access to the shop here: https://harvestclub.co.za/

Step 2: Join the club’s WhatsApp group

The food club WhatsApp group is where all the important updates are shared, including the shop order dates, the collection venues, and the stories behind our products and suppliers. Please contact me (Robynn) on 083 324 1521 and ask to join the group.

What about costs and payments?

There’s no cost to join the food club, and due to our group buying power, we often get access to quality products at well below the usual shop prices. However, there’s a minimum order value of R250, and since there’s a fair amount of admin, logistics and direct costs involved in receiving, sorting and storing everyone’s individual orders, a small Market Day Fee of R47 is charged per order. You won’t need to make any payment on the online shop. Payments are made afterwards via EFT or card. Some of our suppliers require an upfront payment before they’ll deliver our orders though. So, to assist with the extra admin and cash flow requirements, there’s a deposit payment of R250, which gets paid by EFT after the orders close.

The remainder of the invoice is settled when you collect. The reason why we do it this way is that some items may not arrive due to supplier or stock issues, and some items are priced by weight, such as certain meats and cheeses. You only pay for what you actually get!

Note: We believe in transparency, and so your invoice will clearly show how much is paid directly to the farmers and producersa wonderful feature of the food club system!

I started Harvest Club because I feel that small, regenerative farmers will save the world. But they need our support. The global industrial food system with its chemical farming, feed lots and mass supermarkets, disconnects people from the source of their food, with unsustainable consequences.

My mission is to help support those small farmers - and the food makers who use their produce – through collaborating and creating a better win-win food system for us all. The food club connects us back to the source of our food and is one way we can all make a difference to our local economy, our own health, and our planet.

I hope you’ll come join our movement.