Buying wholesale for personal use?

Powerfrog

I tend to buy a lot of frozen and jar/canned food. Stuff that lasts months. I feel like I'm wasting massive amounts of money paying retail prices every week.

Is there a way to buy wholesale but for relatively low quantities (Say 20kg of frozen chicken breast, 100 jars of pasta sauce, etc)? Even if minimum order is 500 jars, perhaps go in with some friends and split it. Why doesn't everyone do it? Why do WE never talk about it on the forums?

I am very interested in finding something like this, but it's been difficult finding a good place to buy from. Anyone have experience/suggestions?

richardw

Plenty of people go to Makro, perhaps do a forum search.

delain

Makro is the shop for you. You have to own your own business though or be a cardholder for one, or at least that was how it was.

nuatha

Powerfrog wrote: »

I tend to buy a lot of frozen and jar/canned food. Stuff that lasts months. I feel like I'm wasting massive amounts of money paying retail prices every week.

Is there a way to buy wholesale but for relatively low quantities (Say 20kg of frozen chicken breast, 100 jars of pasta sauce, etc)? Even if minimum order is 500 jars, perhaps go in with some friends and split it. Why doesn't everyone do it? Why do WE never talk about it on the forums?

I am very interested in finding something like this, but it's been difficult finding a good place to buy from. Anyone have experience/suggestions?

Bookers/Makro generally require you to have business paperwork to get membership. Costco do offer membership to a range of employees (eg Local Authority) as well as business owners/managers . Once you have membership then there are no minimum purchase limits.
However the main supermarkets are often cheaper than the wholesalers particularly if you shop offers.

If you have particular requirements and friends that share them, then its worth hunting around for suitable suppliers. A group of friends and I used to bulk buy cereals and pulses on a regular basis, buying from a wholefood wholesaler (minimum order was something like £400) and splitting 20Kg sacks between us. You need someone to coordinate the order, receive the delivery (nearly always during office hours) several people to break the delivery down to match orders (and someone to take/hold the surplus) scales and packaging essential, then arranging delivery/collection.
Perfectly doable, and I've been involved in some discussions on the forums about this.

HTH

kendall17

Costco do do personal memberships at £25+VAT.

I find that if you shop for offers in the supermarket, you can easily beat those that are on the shelves of your local warehouse although things like 5KG of fresh chicken breast for £20 is very hard to beat (Makro)

dlusman

kendall17 wrote: »

Costco do do personal memberships at £25+VAT.

But not for everyone - I have looked at this before - and never been able to work out why they have singled out the specific professions they are prepared to offer membership to. Seems a very strange business model ?

from their website :


You qualify for Individual membership if you belong to or are retired from specific employment groups.
The cost to become an Individual member is £25 +VAT per annum, and this includes a complimentary spouse/domestic partner card for someone over the age of 18.
Membership is available to individuals over the age of 18 years who meet one of the following requirements:

Qualified as:
Chartered Architect Optician Pharmacist Chartered Surveyor Qualified Accountant Solicitor/Barrister Dentist Magistrate/Advocate Chartered/Civil Engineer

Current or retired employee of:
Banking/Finance Civil Servant Education Fire/Rescue Insurance Local Government Airline Post Office Police Force Medical/Health Service

Cornucopia

Bulk-buying varies a lot in terms of whether the wholesale price beats the supermarket price (including incentives & offers) by enough to make the hassle worthwhile.

For many products, Makro (the only one of the three I am familiar with), the wholesale prices are not competitive with the big supermarkets, or Aldi/Lidl.

You also need to add 20% VAT to many product lines (even in the food section).

studentnomore

Who want's to buy 500 jars of something? There are always some offers in supermarkets anyway.

[Deleted User]

trust me having been a retailer most supermarkets are as cheap if not cheaper than wholesalers,and you dont have to buy 2 dozen to get the price

welshee

Cornucopia wrote: »

Bulk-buying varies a lot in terms of whether the wholesale price beats the supermarket price (including incentives & offers) by enough to make the hassle worthwhile.

For many products, Makro (the only one of the three I am familiar with), the wholesale prices are not competitive with the big supermarkets, or Aldi/Lidl.

You also need to add 20% VAT to many product lines (even in the food section).

All foods in Makro are VAT free from my experience.

Cornucopia

welshee wrote: »

All foods in Makro are VAT free from my experience.

Trying to remember, it's been a while since I bought general foods from there.

IIRC, VAT-able things were: soft drinks, biscuits, crisps, ice cream, chocolate/sweets, etc.

I think the rules are probably quite complicated. Every now and then, there is a test case, for example with Jaffa Cakes (which are deemed a cake not a biscuit, and therefore zero-rated)