Did You Know: Behind the Scenes at Green Earth Organics

"Did You Know" is our series of blog posts about Green Earth Organics: how it works, how you can do more with your account, etc.

One the side of our new Green Earth Organics' delivery van, it says "Organics and more delivered to your door".  Here's a look at how your order goes from your computer screen to your door:

On Thursday afternoon, the owner of Green Earth Organics starts designing the next week's Small, Medium, and Large Bins, using price sheets from a variety of suppliers and farmers. Based on what's available in sufficient quantities, what's of good quality, and what is a good price, he creates the bins and decides what other fruits and vegetables to offer in the coming week. This information is posted to our website on Thursday evening, all updated in time for members to log on anytime after 6 PM to start creating their next orders.

When you log on to our website, you are updating your bin live; the information will be saved right on our website and doesn't have to be sent anywhere. Starting on Sunday, Melissa in member service starts creating the paperwork for the first orders of the week by logging on to the website and printing the orders that were saved there.

The deadline for ordering on our website is 9 AM the day before the delivery because we adjust our orders with our suppliers according to the numbers of bins for the next day. So each day, we generate the driver and warehouse paperwork for the next day, then we call our fruit, vegetable, and bread suppliers and order what we need for the next day.

Each delivery day, our suppliers deliver our bread and our produce very early in the morning. The warehouse manager is as early as 6:30 AM to receive those deliveries and wash all the bins returned the night before. While the bins dry, the warehouse staff begins setting up "the line" - the counter where the big cases of apples, potatoes, lettuce, and more, are set out to pack from. The empty bins are hand-packed with the fresh items as they are pushed along the line.

Some of those bins will be what we call "no subs" - the default bin contents for a Small, Medium, or Large Bin. More of them will be "sub" bins, and the substitutions (whether made by the website or by the member), special instructions, and/or additional items will be printed on a slip of paper that the warehouse will follow, then tape to the outside of the bin to make sure it goes to the right person. Custom Bins also have a piece of paper, listing all the contents for that bin.

Since we receive fresh produce from our suppliers every day, sometimes there are unexpected complications. Maybe they give us a case of apples where all of them are bruised, or maybe they run out of English peas... if we can, we will send someone to pick up a replacement from one of the other suppliers, but if that's not possible, we will send a different item in its place with an explanatory note.

While fruits, vegetables, and bread are delivered daily, other items are ordered on other schedules. We order our milk twice a week, many of our less-perishable items once a week, and other non-perishable items only every month or two. As a small company, it can be tricky to keep everything in stock at all times, especially since sometimes our suppliers are out of stock, so if something is unavailable as the bins are packed, the warehouse puts it on a grocery list.

The delivery drivers arrive at the warehouse shortly before the deliveries start at 2 PM. They load the vans with the freshly packed bins, check their delivery routes for new members, address changes, and special delivery instructions, and receive their grocery lists from the warehouse manager. Then they head off to a local store to try to fill any unavailable items. We don't make any money off those items, of course, but we'd rather fill every order. If they are unable to find the item in the store either, they include a note in the bin and make a note on their delivery paperwork. Then they head out to make their deliveries, aiming for the most efficient routing possible.

In the meantime, Melissa and/or Esther in the office are answering emails and phone calls, adding bottle and cold pack return credits to accounts, processing payments, and working on the paperwork for the next day. We aim to answer every email within the same business day that it is received and to return every voicemail from overnight by noon the next day. We do not generally phone anyone before 10 AM, though, unless it is urgent. Between the daily tasks, Esther takes care of our FaceBook and Twitter pages and works on the monthly email newsletter, and Melissa does inventories, researches new products, and works on the weekly paper newsletter and blog.

The warehouse staff is usually done by about 3 PM, and the office closes at 4 PM most days, but the delivery drivers are out until 9 PM. When they finish their rounds, they leave their paperwork, covered in notes about bin, bottle, and cold pack returns, any unavailable items, any delivery instruction changes, etc., on Melissa's desk, and they put the bins they picked up out in the warehouse, ready to be washed. The next morning, it all starts all over again!