Oh, my goodness, the excitement! You wouldn’t think making a bulk order would be such a big deal to someone like me who’s been making orders like these for years!
To back up, I thought this order would have happened right after getting here. Before moving to Israel I learned about a bulk baking supply company, and took their phone number with me in order to place an order as soon as we got our phone line hooked up. The woman I spoke to, upon hearing that I lived in the northern part of Israel, suggested I contact one of their suppliers in the north, and order directly from him to make things easier for me.
Great idea, I thought! I got on the phone right away with him, but he didn’t seem to think selling to me was such a great idea at all. No problem – I’ve convinced a few sources who usually only sell directly to stores to sell to me, and so even though this was in Hebrew and there’s a definite gap between my English and Hebrew fluency, I set to work to convince him as well. He finally agreed after two or three weeks of conversations, and I happily placed my first order.
My happiness was premature, however, since he called a day later to apologize. He told me he really wanted to find a way for it to work for me to order with him, but since I wasn’t registered as a business, the computer system was rejecting my order since my identity number is linked to a private person – and he was only allowed to legally sell to businesses. Oh, shucks. I couldn’t find a way to get around this, aside from finding a business that would be willing to tack on my order to theirs, but I don’t yet have the connections to make this possible. So there went that idea. (Someone since suggested that I register myself legally as a business, which might be an idea worth looking into but will take a lot of legwork and time in government offices.)
At the same time, I was negotiating with a different store to sell to me in bulk, which they agreed to do but they hadn’t told me what the discount would be for buying in those amounts. I literally spoke with five different levels of management about this, getting referred to a higher up each time, and it’s clearly the first time anyone spoke to any of them about this. But I finally lost my interest in continuing to persist, since the top guy kept telling me to call him in the few days, and then he’d be in a meeting or not have the numbers in front of him or whatever. I still have his number for a time when I have nothing to do but but repeatedly call until I get a final answer. (I don’t think this will happen – when I lose interest, I move on – I don’t have time and energy to waste.) So there went that idea.
Then I thought to arrange a bulk order locally from the first place that’s far away, and to split the gas costs to pick it up. There was only lukewarm interest in the idea, and later I realized that to do something like this, you first have to teach people how to buy in bulk, how to store in bulk, how to split orders, how much money can be saved. It was too much work to get this together with other people, so finally I decided to make my own order.
Dh rented a car to go pick this up, and between the rental cost and the gas cost ($8 gallon), it really decreased our savings. But there were a couple of things that justified it because I can’t get it locally at all (eg palm shortening) so we felt it was necessary by this point.
So three months after arriving, we got our first bulk order, and it literally felt like old times! My kids were shlepping all the bulk bags up and asking me where to store things, and it was so something that our family does, and it was a nice heartwarming feeling. For me, anyway. 🙂
It doesn’t seem like so much when it’s written down, but in the little rental car with three kids along for the ride, dh was hard pressed to find a place for everyone! Here’s what I got:
- 60 kg palm shortening
- 12 kg chocolate chips
- 5 kg cocoa
- 5 kg shredded coconut
- 5 kg baking powder
- 25 kg baking soda
- 25 kg oats
- 25 kg sunflower seeds
- 25 kg coarse salt
- 10 kg powdered sugar (for dd17)
- 1 kg garlic powder
- 2 kg cinnamon
- 1 kg cumin
- 2 kg sweet paprika
- 1 kg oregano
- 1 kg curcum (sorry, I don’t know if this translates to curry or tumeric, if someone knows please clue me in)
I like having what I need on hand and not running out!, and I really like paying 25 – 50% or less of store prices! The challenge is always where to store things, which in much more compact Israeli apartments is definitely a legitimate issue. (This is where I think doing a shared bulk order is a win-win; people get the cheaper price but don’t have to store large amounts of food.) Initially I was surprised that with food costs so high, Israelis don’t seem to think of buying in bulk or getting lots of things when they’re on sale, but it seems the space constraints as well as the ‘buy it fresh the day you need it’ mentality don’t lend themselves to bulk buying.
Avivah
Can you share what company you ordered from? Thanks!
poliva.co.il – fortunately, their website is now functional, since in the beginning nothing was listed there and the only way to get prices was to call them directly and ask. Even now, when I called to order some prices were different than what was listed.
Hi Aviva,
I have thought that bulk buying would be a great idea for Israel for a while. In fact I layed the groundwork for distribution a while ago and am in the States now meeting a source for bulk maple syrup. Would you be interested in helping me put a business together for bulk buying??
Regards,
Etan
Interesting that they wouldn’t do a delivery to you because you’re not a registered business, because they had no problem selling to me and a friend who certainly aren’t registered as businesses. Maybe the supplier makes a difference because we used the supplier in the Jerusalem area?
Did you price compare for the spices and the cocoa? How did they compare? I also bought much of what you bought from them (only switch the palm shortening with coconut oil) and I didn’t buy spices, cocoa, or salt, and found the savings to be terrific.
Where are you storing your bulk stuff? Did you bring your bulk storage buckets or find another source of them?
Did you order directly from Poliva or from a supplier? The main store has no problem selling directly to customers. I suppose different suppliers can be registered differently legally and have different limitations.
Yes, of course I price compared!! Seriously, I can’t believe you would ask me that. 🙂 Spices were a huge savings, at least 50% less (eg here I pay 16 shekels for 500 grams of cinnamon, there I paid 12 shekels a kilo); the cocoa was listed on the receipt at 70 shekels higher than I was quoted, but dh was the one picking up the order and had no way to recognize the discrepancy. I’m sure I wrote down the right price since what I wrote was also similar to the website price, so maybe she ended up giving me a more expensive kind of cocoa? No idea, really – I expected it be fifty percent of the price in the store and it ended up less than 25 percent. But it was still a savings.
I guess the reason I asked if you price compared the cocoa and spices is because the price quoted to me for cocoa was insane compared to Rami Levi, and I decided not to get because of that, and because I’m able to get spices pretty cheaply at an “al hamishkal” store near me. How much did garlic cost per kilo there?
Two times I got delivered from a supplier to jerusalem and split with a friend, and one time I went to ramle and picked it up myself from their store.
Aviva, it certainly seems like more when you write the amounts in pounds instead of kilos. Thats 425 pounds of stuff!
When I went there by car, just bringing back my 25 kilos of: oats, instant mashed potatoes, powdered milk, shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, and 12 kilos of chocolate chips and 12 kilos of coconut oil took up most of the room in the car!
You’re right, in pounds it’s definitely more impressive sounding – I forgot to write that we also got ten kilos of something else (just added it in to the post), so we actually were up to 450 pounds of food!
What kind of coconut oil did you get? I found it very frustrating to try to figure out the difference between their oils and fats, and since the least expensive coconut oil was liquid (and I don’t know how you can have liquified coconut oil unless it’s highly processed), I decided against it for now. Just figuring out the palm shortening was a job; what they had listed as palm oil had me researching to figure out what in the world they were passing off as palm oil.
The “liquid” coconut oil actually isnt liquid, its liquidy in the summer heat here, but solid as a rock in the winter or fridge. I got the 18 kilograms on the “carton”, not the bucket. I didn’t get the “muksha”, hardened, because I figured they did something cuckoo to it to hydrogenate it or something so its solid all the time.
Curcum is tumeric. Curry is spelled kuf-alef-resh-yud.
You’ll have more luck getting together a group among Anglo circles. There are a handful of co-ops already running in homeschooling circles in the center, so I assume it’s happening up north, too. It’s worth exploring. 🙂
Thanks, Malkie! I thought it was tumeric, but wasn’t sure. And now that you mention the spelling of curry, I remember seeing that in the spice store.
I did ask the Anglos about this! I touched base this week with someone in the north who told me about another bulk source closer to here, so that’s something I’m going to explore for the future.
Okay, I’ll bite. What do you do w. 25 kg of baking soda? I use it in cooking, cleaning and hair-washing, and I still only buy 10 lbs at a time and it lasts me 6 months!
Lol, Ellen, it’s been a couple of years since I wrote about this! http://oceansofjoy.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/uses-for-baking-soda/
The lack of baking soda was something I was very frustrated by when I moved here – here they sell it in tiny containers of about 150 grams for 7 shekels. At under 2.5 shekels a KILO, there’s a huge price discount by buying in bulk. Among other things that are detailed in my post linked above, I really like using bs instead of antiperspirant – it’s so much more effective, without all the negative side effects – and I disliked having to use antiperspirant for the last three months.
A big sack like this will last me quite a while, at least a year.
I have a book called something like “100 Uses for Baking Soda” and I think you added at least one new one to my knowledge base! I love the “play doh” recipe, esp. that it’s gluten-free.
Wow, I’m really stunned at the price of baking soda in Israel! Maybe you need to start a little makolet selling just baking soda 🙂
And, yes, your hair does take a while to get used to using baking soda on it rather than shampoo, but, 7 years in, I can say that being “no shampoo” is lovely and inexpensive!
Now I deal with the store (prices are slightly higher, but only slightly, especially compared to the supermarket), but I initially dealt with the Jerusalem distributor. He’s so unreliable though that the extra few agurot/kg (and not on every item either) is worth my time and lack of frustration…not to mention getting it faster! I use them almost exclusively for baking goods, and I absolutely do split orders (due to storage constraints).
Ronit–
Where do you get your “liquid” coconut oil, does it still have the coconut taste, and how much does it cost?
I use tons of it in my pareve baking, and so far dh has been bringing it back from the US for me, and that’s not as convenient as it sounds, lol.
http://www.poliva.co.il/store-product-10.html – I’m pretty sure this is a processed coconut oil with no coconut flavor/smell remaining. 18 kg, 282 shekels.
How much is a kilo in liters?
Yea, I assume its that, but the packaging looks different than when I bought it last (a few months ago).
It has maybe the slightest coconut taste, but its refined stuff.
Avivah-
Where in the North of Israel are you? We are in Carniel, right in the center of Galilee. Have been trying to find a way to buy in bulk for ourselves and friends here and in Tiberias with no sucess. Maybe because my Hebrew stinks! If you are any where near us and would like to work together, PLEASE let me know! Even if my friends don’t want to, I still do! Much of the stuff that would be on my list is on yours.
The only thing we have found so far in whole wheat flour straight from the miller. 3-4 shekels a kilo depending on how much we order.
By the way I use baking soda and vinegar instead of chemical laundry stain removers. Just set the item in a tub or basin, sprinkle generously with soda and spritz with vinegar. You have to leave it sitting for a couple hours but it takes out everything I have tried it on without ruining the colors! My hubby spilt oil with tumeric on a white dress with dark purple print causing a bright yellow stain. But it came out completely without scrubing! And the print stayed with no fade.
Rachel, I’m also in Karmiel! I wonder if we met? Is it possible you were sitting to the left of me at the women’s gathering in August?
I use a lot of baking soda for cleaning (including laundry), but haven’t ever used it as a stain remover – thanks for the great tip!
I just did Aliya, and I was wondering if you could post an update to this article. Specifically, I was wondering were a person could buy bulk for tomato products (diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, etc.) (what would be the equivalent to #10 cans in the US. Or where somebody could just buy bulk tomatoes for canning? Also, could you just posted an updated list of companies that will sell bulk? Finally, I have seen “basket deliveries” of vegetables directly from farmers for organic vegetables and fruits, but not non-organic. Does it exist in Israel? Thanks for your help and the great posts that you have done.
Do you have organic coconut oil? If you do, could I buy some from you?
I don’t have a source for bulk organic coconut oil – you can find it in the local health store. I buy processed coconut oil in bulk.