Sunday, July 10, 2005
Bulk Grain Order
Spoke with Oliver tonight. I was planning on placing a decently large grain & hops order with North Country Malt supply sometime soon, and he suggested that perhaps we could do a bulk order and save some money. Base 2-row and crystal are pretty much staples, particularly for us all-grainers, so we'll poll folks at the meeting on Friday and see what they might want. In the meantime, go to North Country Malt Supply's website and look thru their catalog.
Typical 55 lb bags are ~$30, and 1 lb of hop pellets are between $8 and $9. These prices do not include shipping.
I'll also be bringing the price and malt analysis sheets to the meeting so we can see who is interested. I'll have to call them and find out what the deal is for pallet shipments and at what price it REALLY becomes more economical than just standard FedEx ground. God knows with gas being $2.30/gallon these days...
EDIT:
OK, I found out the deal. Sounds like we may have some difficulties doing a bulk order, but here it is. Cost for a pallet is $94 + a 8% fuel surcharge, which comes to $101.52 per pallet. Since their standard shipping method of Fedex Ground costs around $17/bag, that means the break-even point is basically 101.52/17 = ~6 55lb bags of grain, or 330lbs. I don't see us having folks that interested, but I could be wrong. In addition the pallet must be delivered to a business address - there is apparently a non-trivial surcharge for residential delivery.
I did ask if we could get quantities less than a 55lb bag included in the order, such as 5 lbs of this malt or 2lbs of hops, etc. They said that wasn't an issue and they'd just box it up and stick it on the pallet.
So, basically - If we've got 3 or 4 folks that want 2 55lb bags a piece, we should/could do it, provided we get the business address issue resolved. Otherwise we probably just want to order independently and have them FedEx Ground it to our respective houses.
Typical 55 lb bags are ~$30, and 1 lb of hop pellets are between $8 and $9. These prices do not include shipping.
I'll also be bringing the price and malt analysis sheets to the meeting so we can see who is interested. I'll have to call them and find out what the deal is for pallet shipments and at what price it REALLY becomes more economical than just standard FedEx ground. God knows with gas being $2.30/gallon these days...
EDIT:
OK, I found out the deal. Sounds like we may have some difficulties doing a bulk order, but here it is. Cost for a pallet is $94 + a 8% fuel surcharge, which comes to $101.52 per pallet. Since their standard shipping method of Fedex Ground costs around $17/bag, that means the break-even point is basically 101.52/17 = ~6 55lb bags of grain, or 330lbs. I don't see us having folks that interested, but I could be wrong. In addition the pallet must be delivered to a business address - there is apparently a non-trivial surcharge for residential delivery.
I did ask if we could get quantities less than a 55lb bag included in the order, such as 5 lbs of this malt or 2lbs of hops, etc. They said that wasn't an issue and they'd just box it up and stick it on the pallet.
So, basically - If we've got 3 or 4 folks that want 2 55lb bags a piece, we should/could do it, provided we get the business address issue resolved. Otherwise we probably just want to order independently and have them FedEx Ground it to our respective houses.
