Organic Food Co-operatives

About a year ago,  I read an article about how consumers were banding together to create their own food co-operatives in order to order big to reap the economies of scale benefits and also not having to pay retailers costs, labour and delivery charges.

Ideally, I was looking for a few way to interacting with farmers and producers of all weekly consumables; food, household cleaning products, hygiene products etc.  Being a 21st century gal, I turned to the Oracle (the internet) and just did a search for local Food co-ops and found one near me called Transition Town Brixton which is quite close to me in South London.  I made contact and joined.  If they thought it was odd that I contacted them out of the blue like that, they didn’t show it, but subsequently, I’ve found out that most people join on recommendation of other members of the co-operative.

I like it, but unfortunately, I can’t buy everything from there but I am able to buy dry goods e.g. rice, coconut flour, natural soap (for me and for my laundry!), chocolate etc and the odd unusual find like Maca powder which is my current fad.  But they are unable to deliver fresh fruit, meat and vegetables, so I’m still making my way to Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s on a regular basis – boo.

The positives are that I save a little bit of money on organic products and pay no delivery charges.  The downside is the wholesalers will not split cases of products generally, so unless you can convince your fellow co-operators that Dr Bronner should become their ‘go to’ soap, you have to buy a whole case or just forget it.

The two main wholesalers we use are Suma Wholesale and Infinity.  Infinity seems a bit fairer than Suma, as it produces a wholesaler list of prices that is not tailored to you therefore, you know that everyone is paying the same price.  However, Suma is more hi-tech.  You have to log on online and therefore the prices you are quoted, I’m sure, are tailored to your spend.  Our spend as a collective, averages £600-£1000 per order, which probably isn’t huge when compared to independent shop orders.  I still think we may have a bit more wriggle room to get the prices down but we just need to get to know our value to them as customers.. and USE IT. 😉

Liquid Clothes Wash

This is for anyone interested in a less-toxic clothes washing solution and also good for those who want to move away highly scented formulas.  A friend of mine’s daughter still suffers from croup and this is made worse by highly scented powders and conditioners.

Due to lack of emulsifying agents, this mixture isn’t uniform in appearance and needs a good shake before pouring.  I put it in an ‘in the drum’ jug that I sent away from one of the big soap corporations.   (Can’t remember which one now.)  I’ve been making this mixture for over a year now.  It’s really the reason I want to make my own version of Dr Bronner’s liquid soap to use as part of this recipe.  But I will do it… just not now.

Ingredients

• 1 mug of soda crystals (generally £1) in most supermarkets
• 2 mugs, just boiled hot water
• 1 mug of bicarbonate of soda
• 100ml castile soap, scented (Your favourite Dr Bronner’s.  It is the only one I have found that works.)

Method

Get a large plastic jug and put the soda crystals and hot water and whisk with a whisk.  Dissolving as much as possible.  Then add the bicarbonate of soda and whisk vigorously.  Once combined, add the castile soap and whisk again.  Done.

I then pour into an empty, plastic milk carton, 2L in size.  It will only come up about halfway up the bottle, but when left alone this mixture really thickens, so one needs to shake it vigorously again.  However, if too thick add a little warm water.  I add about 100ml per load.

Liquid Soap – My Struggle

 

So, I have made two (yes, count them) failed batches.  I followed a recipe on soaping101.com and recently made contact with soapmakingforum.com confirmed what I kind of knew from these, shall we call them, experiments.  The glycerin element was too low.  Now, if you are not into soap-making, I thought I’d found an easy-peasy way to make liquid soap akin to a famous doctor’s brand (Dr. Bronner).  Dr Bronner’s soaps are lacking the normal shedload of chemical rubbish that most high street brands contain.  BUT, and as you can see it’s a big one, it is expensive.   So I set about making my own.  These failures have set  me back, as I hate waste but as you can see from my latest version is completely unusable.

My motivation is to make my own liquid soap for all household and personal hygiene purposes with as little unnecessary chemicals added to it, as possible.  I will not need to use preservatives as I will be just mainly be producing for myself.  But I’m also hoping to make it a little cottage industry, if I can get the hang of it, who knows?

I will carry on and when, I’m not going to say if, I do,

I will post my success story and recipe.  Wish me luck.