LATE ORDER POLICY
We have finally determined that we must establish a LATE ORDER POLICY including a late order charge of $7.00. We are not trying to deter you from placing your order, just trying to make up for the extra the time we spend coordinating any ‘off our farm’ products. We are very glad to accommodate you with an order when you have been out of town, you are craving something you want to add, or your schedule has been too crazy to think too far ahead and plentiful other reasons. So hopefully you’ll think of the extra contribution as a donation to the farm for our extra scurrying around happily fulfilling your order.
With so many members and so many locations it becomes hard to keep track of the ordering process between Chris and I and all the farms, bakers and cheese makers when late orders are coming in one at a time past the order deadlines and especially when it is over the weekends. Unfortunately, our gathering of all the items for the Tuesday orders occurs over the weekends when we also attend farmers markets on both Saturday and Sunday.
The farms drop off their products here at their convenience by at least one day prior to the day of delivery (that is Monday morning at the latest for Tuesday deliveries and Wednesday morning at the latest for Thursday deliveries) but some farms bring them 2 days before. Our Rock Hill Bread order deadline is Friday at 2 for Tuesday orders and Monday at 2pm for Thursday orders.
Sometimes late orders are very easy to deal with when there is extra space in the CSA box for more items and all the items are stored here, or the order is placed before we even begin packing. Sometimes, like last week, we have to make up a whole new small box as the extra items would not fit with all the packed items we had all ready. And this is at 5 am on the delivery day! I am opening boxes and inserting orders as we pack the truck. I’m always afraid I’ll make a mistake in the fog of the ‘too early in the morning’ routine. All this discussion is not meant to whine about the extra work but to justify the $7 charge as a real labor cost in relation to the deviations in our normal procedures we jump through to make the orders happen.
Here are some guidelines for you that list easy vs. harder items for us to get on short notice.
These are the Easiest for us to gather for a late order as long as they are in stock:
Beef – stored here for both farms, LWF and MBF
Chicken – stored here for both farms, KNK and JVF
Goat’s milk cheeses, yogurts – Gillis Acres farm is 3 miles away
Eggs – we generally order extra eggs just in case
Maple Syrup – Sugar Mill farm is 4 miles away
Honey – stored here
Granola – stored here
Jam – stored here
Pork – stored here
Turkey – stored here
These items need extra coordination and we may not be able to get for a variety of reasons:
Cows milk products
Goat’s milk products
Sheep’s milk products
Lamb (both farms)
Our Bread ordering deadline is 2pm - 3 days prior to the delivery - So for Tuesday deliveries we have to place the baking order by Friday at 2pm. For Thursday deliveries we have to place the baking order by Monday at 2 pm. Monday
Bread is pretty much impossible after that except for unusual circumstances.
So we will begin this new policy with the October deliveries and hope you all understand. Thanks for all your support and loyalty to our farms and our foods.