Producer Listing Information - Listing Procedure - Work of the Co-op (Delivery Day) - Preparing Your Product

Quick Introduction

1. A producer first needs to become a member of Idaho’s Bounty Co-op.
2. Producers log on and list what they have available to sell. The producer sets his or her own prices for products.
3. The order cycle is open for business.
4. Members log-on and shop, placing products in the shopping cart.  Products will be available based on quantity on a first come, first served basis. 
5. The order cycle closes.
6. The producer uploads their weights and prices are finalized.
7. Members can pay online with Pay Pal or bring a check to the Bountiful Pickup site.  On each order, tax is charged along with a 15% co-op fee.  That fee goes toward the entire delivery process and all the work in between.
8. Products are checked in at our centralized distribution center and sent out that day to our bountiful pick-up sites.
9. Members pick up orders and enjoy the flavors of fresh, locally grown Idaho foods! 
10. Order cycles for that month are closed after the final order cycle of the month.  Checks for the previous order cycles in that month then are processed and distributed to the producers.  You will receive them by the 15th of the next month.

To log onto our system
Go to: www.idahosbounty.org/shop/index.php. You should BOOKMARK this address so you can easily find it when you need it. Sign in with your USER NAME and PASSWORD. If you don't have that info handy, send an email to and ask for your info again. 



Members of the Idaho’s Bounty Co-op support local foods and products produced with sustainable practices that show good stewardship of the environment. 



Every producer member is responsible to know and be in compliance with all appropriate federal, state and local inspections, licenses, statutes and ordinances. 



Every member producer must comply with the Co-op preferred practices and providing information on their location, products, livestock, and practices. All producers are subject to review by the Co-op for adherence to these practices. 



Producer practices and listed products must be kept current and reflect all items that the producer has for sale. An addendum shall be submitted when a producer offers new classes of products for sale.


Idaho’s Bounty Co-op, Inc. Producer product listing information

Once the product is approved, follow the procedure described below to actually list your product in our database for access by our members. Getting the product approved, and then having it appear in our database of currently available products are two different steps. The Co-op does not automatically enter products in our database, that work is done by the producers. 



After a producer and his or her initial product list have been approved, the producer may add new products in subsequent months without having them approved in advance by the Standards Committee. However, the Standards Committee periodically reviews all products and may at any time question a producer about their compliance with our preferred practices. Products that do not meet our preferred practices may be removed from the public price lists of the Co-op by the Standards committee. 



To protect the integrity of our marketing system, the Co-op reserves the right to verify the production claims and geographic production location of everything sold through our marketplace. 



Each producer has a page (or pages) in the on-line Customer Handbook and information on our website and in the Co-op’s price and product lists for their product(s). Each producer also has a page to introduce themselves and tell the story of their farming operations and its products. 



Producers set their own prices, and receive the full retail price they set for their products, less the Co-op’s shipping and handling fee for producers (presently set at 15%). The charges the Co-op makes for its services are always under review in consideration of our expenses. The Co-op is not in a position to lose money on its operations, so the financial structure of the Co-op may be changed from time to time.

The order cycle for the Online Food Market is a bimonthly order/delivery cycle. 

You may book orders in advance through our service. For example, meat producers may take orders for meat in advance of the actual dates the animals will be delivered, to allow appropriate time for processing of the meat or poultry. Vegetable producers can book sales for the following season from customers interested in larger amounts of produce, for example, people who do home canning may be interested in buying vegetables by the bushel, and this can be arranged in advance. However, there must be a product code for delivery of items purchased in advance so that our system prints the appropriate delivery label. If no additional money is to be collected for an item ordered in one month and delivered in another, create a product for "Delivery of (whatever the product is)", and give it a price of 0.00 (if you type that into the price field our system will accept it). The producer is responsible for emailing any customers who have products for delivery that month, and telling them to enter the product code for delivery for their product. The producer must notify the Co-op at the end of the customer order period of any customers who did not order that month or who did not enter the appropriate delivery code, who have products for delivery that month that were paid in a previous month. The Co-op will add the appropriate product codes to those invoices. 



Producer members must comply with any relevant health codes or agricultural laws regarding direct sales of farm and food products to the public. A copy of any licenses or certificates required for your business must be on file with the cooperative.     Back to Top

PROCEDURE FOR LISTING YOUR PRODUCTS ON OUR PRICE/PRODUCT LIST


To offer your product for sale through the Co-op, we need to know everything a customer needs to know in order to make an informed decision about your product. If you enter products on-line, you will be prompted for the relevant information. 



+ Name of the product. 


+ Basic description of the product. If the approximate size, weight or contents are not clear from the name of the product, list those details here. If it is a processed item, include a list of the ingredients and estimate the Idaho content of the ingredients. 


+ Category or subcategory that it should be listed under. If we do not have an existing category and/or subcategory, please give us some guidance on how the product would be categorized. 


+ If it is a package of several items, the approximate (or exact, whichever the case may be) number of items in the package should be listed. 


+ The price, the pricing (e.g. whatever comes after the "per" in $ per __), and the ordering unit (when the customer orders, they will order number of ______). Also, we need to know if the item has a random weight - the customer will not know the price until you provide a weight for it after the item is ordered.

EXAMPLE 1: You are selling a 5 pound bag of wheat for $10.00. The price is $10.00. The pricing unit is "5 pound bag" (because you are selling at $10.00 per 5 pound bag). The ordering unit is also "5 pound bag" because the customer orders by the number of 5 pound bags that they wish to buy. This item is not considered random weight because the bags always weigh the same and the customer knows the final price when it is ordered. Notice in this example that even though the flour ends up costing $2 per pound, you would not list as $2 per pound because you are only selling 5 pound bags that cost $10. 



EXAMPLE 2: You are selling a bag of ground beef. The bag weights range between .75 and 1.25 pounds and you sell the meat at $4 per pound. The price depends on the weight but you want the customer to order by the number of bags, not the number of pounds because you do not package it in exactly 1 pound bags. In this case, your price would be $4, your pricing unit would be "pound", and your ordering unit would be "bag". This is a random weight product because the price cannot be pre-determined by the customer. It can only be determined after you (the producer) enter the weight. 



EXAMPLE 3: You are selling packages of chicken breasts, the package varies in weight from a little under 2 pounds to a little over 2 pounds. However, you always charge the same price per package ($6.00). In this case, price is $6.00, the pricing unit is "package", and the ordering unit is package. This is not a random weight product because the customer knows the price in advance. 



EXAMPLE 4. You are selling tomatoes at $3.00 per pound. The customer can order by the pound. If the customer orders 3 pounds, you have decided that you will always provide a minimum of 3 pounds but will not charge for exact weight but instead charge for the weight ordered. So if the customer orders 3 pounds and you end up giving them 3.1 pounds, you still only charge $9.00. In this case, the price is $3.00. The pricing unit is "pound" and the ordering unit is "pound". This is not a random weight product because the customer can determine what the price will be in advance. Modifying this example slightly, if you did decide that you want to charge for exact weight (e.g. charge $9.30 for the 3.1 pound bag) then all of the other information would be the same, but now this would be a random weight product because when the customer orders 3 pounds, he/she has no way of determining the final price which depends upon your weighing the item). 



+ If it is a random weight product (the price depends on the weight), we need to know the approximate range of weights. Example: roast, sold by a package of one roast, price is $4/lb, the roasts weigh between 2 and 4 pounds. If it is a variable weight product which is sold for a single standard price rather than a price based on a random weight, you should have listed the range of weights in the basic description so the customers know what they are getting. The customer needs this information to know how much to order. 

+ If the product is certified organic 



+ In general, you should use descriptive terms (though not too long) for the ordering and pricing units. Some standard terms will be "pound", "bag", "package" but in many cases it will be worthwhile to be even more descriptive. For instance, if you are selling T-bone steaks 1 to a package at $8/pound, then instead of package you could put steak as the ordering unit. In this case the pricing unit would be pound. However, if the package had two steaks, you would either put "package" or "package of 2 steaks" as the ordering unit. Any product that the customer orders by the item can also get descriptive pricing and ordering units. For instance, if you are selling by the individual tomato, ear of corn, squash, jar or jelly, etc. then you could list "tomato", "ear", "squash", or "jar" as the ordering unit. The pricing units could also be listed as "tomato", "ear", "squash" or "jar", or you could just use the generic "each" in the pricing unit. It may be helpful when you choose these units to think of the way this information will appear on your product listing and on invoices. Your ordering unit will be displayed on your product/price list as follows "Order number of ___________s." So if you choose "steak" as your pricing unit, your listing will say "Order number of steaks". On the customer invoice, the ordering unit will show up under the quantity heading with the # ordered and the ordering unit (e.g., 1 steak, or 2 steaks). For pricing unit, the unit you choose will show up on the product list and on the invoice as price/pricing unit. So for the T-bone above this would be $8/pound because pound was the pricing unit. 



+ If the product is one that is being sold in advance but will not actually be delivered until a future order cycle, let us know the date that it will be delivered. This must be the date of an existing Co-op delivery. If you are not sure about the future delivery date, please contact us to discuss this. If this is an item where you will be setting up more than one payment, you will need to contact us to discuss this. Also, contact us if the item will be delivered directly to the customer by you and not through the Co-op so that we can help you work out the details of listing the item. Contact us. 



+ The sales description of the product, and the production practices and location for the product. 

Producers are responsible for entering this information for their products. The Co-op will do this if the producer does not have internet access, but we reserve the right to levy a charge for this service. 



When this information is entered into our database, the product is assigned a unique ID number. Please keep track of the product ID numbers for your products. Any time you need to change that product, you need the specific product ID number for that product. . If you are able to use the internet, you can access any of your listed or unlisted products from the price lists at www.idahosbounty.org. If you are logging in to our system and updating/adding new products yourself, you will be able to see product numbers for products that were on older price lists. 

If you are no longer selling a product, please do not delete it from the database; instead, simply mark the product so it will not be displayed. 



If you want to change an item from having a standard price to being a random weight item, create a new product for the random weight version of the product. If you want to change an item from being a random weight to being a standard weight/price, create a new product and select "do not display" for the original product. This is very important. If you change a standard weight item to a random weight, it will make that change on every invoice in the database history. 



Our system has an inventory feature. If you will only have 10 units for sale, you can set the inventory control at 10. ) Once 10 items have been sold, no more orders will be taken for that product. If a customer changes their mind, and deletes their order for that product, the system will reset to allow the unsold product to be sold. Back to Top


THE WORK OF THE CO-OP. 


Delivery Day is will be every other week throughout the year.

You can view the on-going progress of your orders by logging into the Co-op’s membership site, but customers may change their orders (add or delete items, change quantities, etc.) until the close of the order desk. Do not consider your orders as "final" until 11pm on Friday of the order week.  They are then ready for printing.  If you print your orders early, you may lose business. (This has already happened to some producers, so don't leave money on the table and disappoint your potential customers by jumping the gun on printing your orders.)

When you check your orders at the close of a monthly's order week, there will be links for your orders sorted by PRODUCT, and by CUSTOMER. You will only see your orders. 



If customers have ordered products from you that have random weights necessary for determining product prices, you will see that information on your invoice. When you have that customer's information, enter it in the appropriate box and press the UPDATE button next to that entry. You can update either at the PRODUCT sort page or the CUSTOMER sort page. Both pages update the master database. This information is due no later than 12 NOON on the TUESDAY before Delivery Day. 



If you run out of inventory on a particular product, notify the customer immediately (email if they have it is fine) so that the customer can choose a substitution from another producer if you don't have a substitute to suggest. If customers have ordered products that are out of stock, there are several ways to handle the situation. (A) "first come, first serve", in which case, look at the SORT BY PRODUCT list because the orders are listed there in the order in which we received them. (B) You could contact the customer and offer a substitution, the customer contact info will be on your list of orders. If you have a limited quantity of an item, use the INVENTORY feature to limit sales to your actual inventory. 



If your customer accepts a substitution, send an email with the details of the substitution. We need to know the customer's name, the product originally ordered (its product ID number), and the product you are substituting (its product ID number). Please state that the customer has accepted the substitution. 



Please be prompt in completing these invoices, especially if you have an out of stock situation. If you do not have the product, other producers may have it available. Customers expect to be notified if you are out of a product or can't deliver it, and you will preserve your customer relationship with them if you are prompt in telling them that you are out of an item so that they can order a substitute from either you or somebody else. Some customers are ordering most of their family's food from the Co-op, and if an item is not delivered, and they are not able to order a substitute, then that creates a problem for them. Don't alienate customers by waiting until the last minute to discover that you are out of a product.

Each time you add info for a random weight item, you must press update, so you do them one at a time. 



Once you have entered any weights for random weight items, and marked any items out of stock, and updated each item (you can only update one item at a time), review the overall invoice. All your changes should be saved and all item prices should now be correct. If all the information is there, you should have a total dollar amount at the bottom of your invoice that reflects the amount that you will receive from the Co-op for this order, less the Co-op's 15% commission. If this total (or any of the individual prices of items) is incorrect, please contact us right way at info@idahosbounty. In the subject line of your e-mail, put "Invoice Error" and your producer name. This needs to be resolved prior to delivery day because prices listed on this invoice also feed into the individual customer invoices. Therefore, if the prices we have for your products are wrong, we will not collect the correct amount from customers. Our ability to pay you the right amount is dependent upon our ability to collect the right amounts from the customer members. 



While the order is open, you can lower prices on products, but you cannot raise prices. 



If you make a change to any product, it will not appear in the public list until the Co-op refreshes the product list. Email us to have this done promptly. 



It is very important that you meet the 12 Noon deadline on the Tuesday before delivery day to enter your random weight items. If you can't meet that deadline, please call us. Once we have started generating invoices, you can't make any other changes to your invoices. 



All questions about customer orders should go directly to the customer. Customer contact information is on your order page that is sorted by CUSTOMER. 



CHECK YOUR EMAIL several times during Order and Delivery weeks, in case there are any Delivery Day issues that need to be addressed. Back to Top

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR PRODUCT FOR DELIVERY THROUGH THE IDAHO’S BOUNTY CO-OP. 


Each order has a customer delivery code that tells us the things we need to know to get the products the customers ordered delivered to them.  This code must be on each product or bag of products to be delivered to a customer, as explained in more detail in the rest of this section. The parts of the member delivery code are: 


-- 3 digit customer member number, these are assigned as the members join the Co-op. As we grow it will eventually be four or even five numbers. 

-- City route/delivery type code. The delivery type is either "P" for pickup, or "D" for home delivery, and there is a letter code for the city, truck code (presently not used) 



Example: 
The steps to preparing your product for delivery are: package individual order, include an invoice to the customer, label the product(s) properly, pre-sort by regional sorting hub. These steps are explained more fully in the rest of this section. 



Orders are delivered packaged for individual customers. Do not deliver 50 pounds of bulk lettuce and expect us to divide it up between your customers for you. 



The order should be packaged securely. Products are transported from your location to the sorting hubs, where they are handled, sorted, and transported again to customers or other regional sorting hubs. The packaging of your product must be able to protect your product during transportation, sorting, and delivery. As many as 8 people may handle your product before it reaches the final customer.

 Each order should have an invoice to the customer with it. You can use the Producer Invoice by customer sort for each customer's invoice by simply printing it and then cutting it apart for your various customers. If you have your own invoicing system, you can use that. 

If a customer has ordered several products from you, you can put all of those products in one bag, box, or container, or you can deliver them as separate items.

Each bag, box, container, or other product for a customer member must be labeled with the first and last name of the member receiving the product and their customer delivery code, the name of the producer, and what the product is. You can use your own label or you can write this information on a box or container (but not on a plastic bag), or you can use the label documents we provide you at the membership page of our website. If you are making your own labels, the information you need is on the customer sort of your Idaho ’s Bounty Food order page. Refrigerated items must be marked REFRIGERATE, otherwise we may not know what to do with it. If an item is frozen, but that won't be apparent to the volunteers because of the packaging, it must be marked FROZEN.

After you have given final confirmation of your orders, prepared Idaho’s Bounty Food labels are available for use on individual products.

If you are putting all of a customer’s orders in one bag, box, or container, use the Producer Invoice by customer sort as the label and securely tape it to the container. Cut it apart to separate the various customers' information. If you are attaching the entire order's document in this way, you can use the customer sort as both the INVOICE and the LABEL. To make these documents into labels, you can print them on plain paper, cut them apart, and tape them (using strong packing tape) to the product or container. Or you can print them on label stock and peel them off and stick them onto the container. Do not use scotch tape or other small light tapes to attach labels or invoices to packages.

If you are sending products as separately packed items, use the individual product label provided in your Idaho’s Bounty member area.

If you are sending a member' products in several containers with more than one product for that member inside, attach each of the relevant individual product labels to the outside of that box.

Customer labels should not be on the outside of any box or container that contains orders for more than one customer. Those containers, bags, or boxes should be labeled with your producer name and the regional sorting hub or hubs with customer products inside.

You can put another label on your product, such as weight and price labels for frozen meats, your own unique producer label or tag, etc.

If you are sending your product in plastic grocery bags, make the label a tag and tie it to the plastic bag, or print the label on label stock and stick it to the bag. Staples don't work well with plastic bags and paper labels, so we require a tag. Do not write information on a plastic grocery bag and expect us to be able to decipher it. Marker inks do not adhere well to plastic grocery bags, and we have had a problem with smudged and missing info that was rubbed off in transit. 

Make sure the ink you print your labels with is WATERPROOF. If you don't use waterproof ink, if the label gets wet, we may not be able to deliver the product to your customer.

After you have packaged your customer's products for delivery, you must pack and deliver them pre-sorted by regional sorting hub. There are presently four regional sorting hubs. The first three letters of the customer delivery code identify the regional sorting hub. They should all be in one bag, box, or container or in several containers devoted to a hub (if the number of products is too large to put in one container). The outside of that container must be labeled with your producer name and the regional sorting hub. 


The bag or container for a regional sorting hub can then be combined in another larger container (such as an ice chest or a larger box) with other containers for other sorting hubs. That container must be marked with your producer name and the regional sorting hubs that the box contains. When we open it up, we should find 3 or more properly labeled boxes or containers. 

If you have some products which are frozen or refrigerated, and some products for a customer that are dry goods or otherwise non-refrigerated, they should be delivered in separate containers, and frozen and refrigerated items should arrive in ice chests. Frozen items must be hard frozen, and refrigerated items must be cold to the touch.  Back to Top