Bulk orders will begin in June

I have been a bit out of whack this week! I have put my back out and my computer is out of order! You really get an idea on how much the computer/internet means in your life when its not readily available.
My PFD food contact is back from his break on Monday 1st June so I will be organising and confirming some prices with him this week. I am planning to organise the first bulk buy order this month (June). I have put much thought into how to best go about this. I have decided to provide a list of items available to purchase. All you will need to do is fill out what you would like to purchase and give me the correct money in an envelope. Once I have everyone's money I will then put the order through.

Family and friends who are interested in the bulk buy orders are more than welcome to put in an order.

WELFARE ENRICHMENT

Baulkham Hills ward welfare enrichment is on this Friday at 7:30pm at the chapel. We will have some great tips on how to prepare yourself for food storage. Hope to see you all there:)

SOME NEWS ON BULK BUY

I have searched around for a good price on flour and rice and what I have discovered that Aldi really is the best buy for plain white rice and plain flour. In saying this the best advice I can offer is if you normally shop here, add some extras when you can to your shopping or if you make a special trip buy as much as you can when you can get there. I will organise a day though to vaccum seal your flour and rice in the foil bags and how/when you can purchase them.

I strongly advise all of you to check out Suzi Perriman's Co-op Stop blog. The link is to the right. She has some great resources. You will also find there are co-op stop members in other parts of NSW and their blogs have some great ideas and resources too.

FROM COUS COUS TO EGG POWDER

I just spoke to a rep from PFD and got some prices on the items I priced at Campbells. The low down basically is that Campbells is a bit on the pricey side. Here are some of the prices from PFD to compare:

Long Grain SunRice 10kg - $21.50

Plain Flour 12.5kg - $11.50

Heinz Tomato soup 18 tins $7

Cous Cous 1kg $5.95

I will be putting these items down on a form on Sunday and you can put down what you are interested in. PFD can do a whole range of goods, checkout their website which will have a pdf of what they offer. Whatever takes your fancy let know. The only thing I won't do is frozen goods.

I also spoke with a company by the name of King Foods. They do a whole range of food and vege powders. I was able to get some samples of strawberry and raspberry powders which I will bring on Sunday(if I don't forget!) We need to purchase a minimum of 18kg and it seems pricey when you first look at it but when you realise the process that goes into making the powders and how much a kilo of it is, its not that bad. We don't have to do this, its a luxury item so to speak and has a shelf life of 12mnths.

Strawberry powder $78.90/kg
Raspberry powder $88.80/kg

I also asked about Egg powder after seeing Natalie Riley's chocolate chip cookie recipe on her blog. This will be $16/kg.

Welfare Enrichment!!!!

For those of you who don't know Natalie Riley, she used to be in our ward but moved earlier this year to Rouse Hill and is in K2 ward. If you see her blog she has her first video up of how to make chocolate chip cookies using storage ingredients(see my blog list to the right). She is using Thrive which is an american company (shelfreliance.com) but I will look into the whole powdered egg thing, I think this is a really good idea.
I will be in touch with Natalie to see if we can have her on a mini enrichment night to give us some cool recipe tips.

Speaking of Enrichment! You have to keep Friday 22nd May open as we will be having our first welfare enrichment. We will have some great ideas on how to declutter your lives to make room for your welfare/storage needs. Hand outs will be coming your way this Sunday.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU and SOME FOOD NEWS

A very big thank you goes out to Nikki and Francine Mamouney for your generosity with the Coca Cola drinks. For those of you not there on Sunday a list of Coca Cola drinks was circulated and we were able to choose from that list for our own use. It will make a big difference to a lot of families including mine, so I can't thank you enough:) If you were not there on Sunday give Francine a call.

I got a leaflet in my letter box the other day from Farm Fresh Poultry which is located at 23 Withers Road Kellyville (not far for a lot of us really). They offer poultry and below retail prices. I called them today and got some prices for you all. I did ask if filled a large order would there be a discount, but they would not offer any further discounts at this time.

Regular chicken breasts $8.50/kg
Regular Chicken thigh fillets $7.99kg

Whole organic/free range chickens size 15 $9.50
Whole organic/free range chickens $9.75/kg

They are open Tues-Fri 10am-6pm and Sat 8am-2pm

This is a super great deal for chicken as you can spend up to $15/kg in the shops and I believe even at aldi its about $10-$11/kg. They have a lot more to their range, but the above items was all I asked about.

I called Campbells Cash and Carry in Northmead today and check out some prices for some of the items requested on the list I circulated two weeks or so ago. Here is what I have been able to find as a guide.

Cadbury Sienna Buttons(compound choc chips) 15kg bag $91.05
- this equates to approx $2.27 for the 375g bag in the supermarkets

Plain Flour Black and Gold 10kg bag $11.40
$1.14 per kg

Rice medium grain Sunrise 10kg $22.07
$2.21/kg

Another food wholesaler by the name of PFD will be contacting me soon for some prices to compare to what I have put above.

I have also contacted another company called Simotas Food which provides a wide range of Cadbury chocolate buttons.

Delight Cadbury Milk Chocolate(not compound) $115.90/15kg
This equates to $7.72/kg or $2.90/375g.

I was at Woolworths last night and the standard blocks are actually no longer 250g they range from 200-220g blocks and the prices are $3.99 which I find absolutely ridiculous. Buying in bulk is a much better idea. I will hopefully be gettinga more extensive price list today so I can bring that on Sunday. We will also get free delivery as well.