Overall the thing that has saved us the most is that we buy most of our supplies, pots, trays, chemicals, etc through a Co-Op. The entire point of it is that they get their 100s if not 1,000+ customers to buy thru them giving them huge buying power AND they are not there to make money on top of expenses, the goal is to pay their bills and 6 employees well and pass on any extra back to the patrons as dividends.
For example, the exact same pot is 4.16¢ from our co-op, but 4.63¢ from a nationwide dealer. You say, but that is only .47¢ and true, except we buy almost 500,000 so that is over $2,500 on this one item alone and there are hundreds.
Unfortunately, this isn't available in all industries but it is a huge savings every year of over 100 grand between supply cost savings and Dividends.
mostly with Vriesland Growers co-op in Hudsonville, MI but they have customers all over the Midwest and do pickup and can schedule freight loads too. Hudsonville box and basket is another but I don't use them but other friends do.
I haven't used the big guys like Carlin, BFG, etc for years and years. Plastic is all made in Michigan at East Jordan Plastics.
@WoodCandleCo We sell a ton of hairbows and have them on plastic cards, so everytime we sell a hairbow we remove them from the card and reuse it. It has saved us a bunch of money over the years.
