[PAL]

We are very new and very small, so I’m not sure how helpful I can be, but wanted to throw in my two cents. We sit in a larger non-profit. We only have two regular customers, but are expecting 2-3 more in the next 2 months. We are not yet charging for delivery, but I suspect we will in a few months. We may charge our first 3-5 customers a reduced delivery fee since they’ve taken a chance on us. We rent our refrigeration and trucks from a partner organization. They include drivers with the cost. We have not yet started using the trucks since we only have the two customers, but I think that time will be here soon and the MOU to use the trucks is already in place. At the moment, the cost of going and picking up the food is one that we eat as well because we receive the food at our partners’ warehouse. This is the same organization from whom we rent the truck and cooler space.

[Roots Return Heritage Farm LLC]

This is a common model we see across the Midwest, and in MN. One concept I wanted to explore was the use of already staffed state agency delivery trucks; those that already have regular routes in different geographic areas of a state. Some refrigerated, some frozen, some not. I wonder if we couldn’t work with state DoT’s to further explore routes already in place, utilizing better ROI for taxpayers everywhere(?)

[Valley Roots Food Hub]

Hi! We have set margins on our products. In theory these margins cover our delivery costs. We have 3 separate market structures. Two wholesale (one regional and one out of our Valley) & one retail. Our retail market is in align with a grocery store markup. There’s a lot more detail and work involved with those orders so it justifies the increased margin for us. We also have order minimums for complimentary delivery. We’ve developed a formula so if customers don’t reach order minimum, we add a delivery fee. When we get items shipped to us and if we are planning on reselling them in our market, we also have an amortization sheet to account for the shipping fees on those items so we aren’t eating the costs. Feel free to chat further if you’d like!