I thought I’d do a post to show what we do every month to get ready for the OVFC delivery day.
It all starts with sending a few pigs out to the abattoir/butcher shop. Then Ella and I drive out to pick up the boxes of cut and frozen pork. Canadian law requires all handling of raw/unwrapped meat to be done at an inspected butcher shop. Not that I would want to be cutting and wrapping all that pork anyway.
This is just a small pile of boxes. It’s only bacon, sausages and smoked ham. Usually there are a lot more boxes. It’s much easier dealing with the pork in the winter. Our summer kitchen is unheated, so the boxed can sit out there comfortably. In the summer we move the pork to picnic coolers to wait to be weighed and priced.
The first week of the month is order week. Consumer members can go online and see what’s new this month. Then they click away on all the items they wish to purchase. Just before this week we count the pork in the freezer and update our inventory numbers. We keep an eye on the website as the week goes along to make sure we don’t sell out of any items -if we can help it.
After order week closes, I print off our order sheet and the accompanying 
labels. Then we sort and bag and label the orders. The hard part is fitting it all back into the freezers 🙂 One day that week I’ll go online and enter in all the weights and generate invoices for our customers. Thank heavens for high-speed, it was painful to do when we had dial-up, literally it took hours.
The third Saturday of the week is generally Delivery Day (it moves 
depending on Christmas). Bright and early we pack up the truck with the picnic coolers full of our orders. We drive to the sorting location in Pembroke.
Here volunteers check and sort all the orders and put them into separate coolers for the various delivery routes. At the end of the day, driving volunteers take all the orders to our remote delivery locations. Consumers pick up their orders.
Hi Paula,
I’m a member of the Food Co-op and I was wondering if you sell whole pigs to cook on a large spit? If so, how much per pound would it cost and roughly how many pounds would a pig be? We have a friend willing to wrap it for the spit so we would just need it cleaned for pick up. Also, how much notice do you need for ordering before the date we will need it? I won’t know how many people we will be feeding until the end of July. Please let me know how I can contact you to place the order.
Thanks
Tammy Stuart
Hi Tammy
Yes, we sell bbq pigs. Price will depend on size. Can you make a rough guess? Most people figure a pound per person, depending on how much else they are serving. When do you need the pig? A good couple weeks notice is best as the butcher is only doing pigs every 2 weeks. And they are going on holiday the last week of July and first of August. Our email is fletchingtonfarms at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.
[…] Colin went and took his seed cleaner and some wheat to demonstrate. It was the same day as the OVFC delivery, so I headed to Pembroke to drop off pork and pumpkins. On the way back I picked up Ella and […]