By placing an order with us and confirming that you want it, you’re agreeing to pay us for the items. We’ll use our best efforts to get them to you when & where we say we will, in good condition, and you’re promising to use your best efforts to collect your box on time.
If anything goes wrong – if you can’t collect on time, for example – email us or phone your pickup point and we will try to sort something out for you.
Sometimes we find that we can’t send you items you’ve ordered – either they haven’t arrived at the packing shed or they weren’t good enough to send. In that case we will refund your food hub account, usually on the same day.
If you find that what we’ve delivered is not as described or is not satisfactory, email us and we will refund you for it, again to your food hub account in the first instance.
Any balance left in your account after your order has been paid for will be held for you & used towards the cost of your next order. If at any point you want your balance refunded to your bank account, please email us and we will send it to you immediately.
Our email address is deanforestfood@gmail.com
Who are we?
We’re a network of food producers and consumers, working together in a not-for-profit workers co-op to build a new sort of food system, one based on fairness and balance. Everyone contributes, everyone benefits.
The Food Hub is more like a club than a shop. When you order through us, you are buying from the producers, using us as a delivery system. The workers co-op acts as a bulk-buy club, as well – we buy many of the dry goods and things like olive oil in bulk from ethical sources (usually other co-ops!) and sell members a small quantity on demand. That’s where we make most of the running costs of the hub: we put a bigger mark-up on these items, and that means that we only need to take 12.5% from local producers.
How do we manage the business?
The legal & technical stuff: We’re a worker’s co-op, registered with the FSA as a limited not-for-profit company. If you want to join the co-op, you can come to one of our monthly meetings and see how we do things (email us for details), but if you come regularly and join the co-op you’ll become a “director” of the company.
Big decisions get made by that monthly meeting, so it has to be most of the people who are deeply involved – the worker’s co-op itself. Small decisions get made by the people on the ground. How to tell the difference? If someone feels that a decision is too big for them to make alone, they ask for advice. No bosses, no supervisors.
Some people get paid for their work for the Hub and some people can afford to volunteer their time, or make other contributions like being a pick-up point. Producers get paid for their stuff, though – that’s a given.