I need help bulk buying stuff

[ChudleyCannons]

I work in theatres attached to icu but we all share the burden, we send staff to them and we share a coffee room. We do intensive procedures on the unit and obviously we bring their patients covid or not to our theatres.

I want to buy some decent tea, coffee and hot chocolate plus salt pepper, sauces etc as we get 2 sachets of maxwell house per person per day (cheers Sodexo) I would buy biscuits but people we hoard them as you don't know when you might get more but tea and coffee is accepted as non hoard able because we all need caffeine

Where can I buy this as catering packs? I need enough tea and coffee for 150 people that isnt Nescafé or maxwell house! Also biros because my staff love pens.

Upper management just cancelled leave til may the least I can do is provide decent coffee, tea, pens and a limited amount of chocolate.

Do you need a Costco membership to go there? Is makro better? Help me people who bulk buy!!

You need a Costco / makro membership but I think you can purchase a Costco membership quite easily if you're NHS / have American Express card ....

I've been to both; for tea I prefer Makro because they usually have Yorkshire tea on offer lol 😂
You can usually see their offers online if you wanted to look before you sign up?

I think you can order online for Costco now though without being a member?

If you don’t want a membership, Amazon (I know, dirty word!) often has catering-sized supplies for a decent price.

Ooh Yorkshire tea! That would perfect! We have Tetley at the moment but they're so old that they just turn to dust.

I'm doing this because I'm a band lower than my manager who has to tell our staff who worked with no leave from March to June and just work really hard in general
That the company that supplies cleaners and parking attendants will be paying their staff £1000 for working the pandemic but our staff will at the moment in time get a chocolate orange each and a badge that says 'care' if they're band 2 so a little over minimum wage. But the car parking is going up to cover that taxable benefit..

Anyone can get a Costco card, the only difference between a commercial and personal cards iirc is the hours you are allowed to shop there. Can't comment on the quality of their produce though as I let my card lapse several years ago.

Makro are good, they are very much geared towards catering nowadays so often have some really good deals on "proper" coffee and catering-size teas. Because they are wholesale you need to be in business to get a card but IIRC a management role in the civil service or NHS would qualify.

Check any tesco extras near you the ones round here have changed the "seasonal" isle to the "bulk biy" isle, big bags of 600 teabags!

Contact a local catering supplier, they will deliver.

Just to clarify I'm the higher banding clinical person in our unit but matron has to give them the crap news. I've spoken to DH about this and he's happy for me to spend £300 of our money on stuff that will make my staff feel appreciated.

I also intend to order a Nando's or a dominos to the unit once or twice a month so people feel appreciated.

But pens is a good start whilst I ask them what kind of food they want on the last Friday of the month

Can you talk to catering and ask where they get their supplies, or the people that top up the vending machines?

No minimum order here:www.brake.co.uk/drinks-snacks/hot-beverages

Catty remark!

Don’t bother buying coffee from Costco, it’s more expensive than getting the jars of coffee from any supermarket. The tesco one which looks like the gold blend granules is our most favoured one at work.

@Flickoffboris nope I'm looking for help on bulk buying decent coffee for my team thanks. Tomorrow they're about to be told they won't be having annual leave til may and that the company that f all for us is giving a bonus to their own staff. Not stealth boasting at all. I want to help my own
Team

You can order really nice instant coffee from Beanies Flavour Co, it comes in all sorts of flavours for about the same price as a regular jar of instant, and they're based somewhere near Newcastle so delivery is reasonably quick.
beaniesflavourco.co.uk/
They seem to be out of sticks of coffee just now but they have the all-in-ones and if you are putting in a big order, maybe they could give you an idea of when they'll be back in stock? I put two big orders in with them last year (for jars, not sticks) and I was very pleased with the range of flavours.
Highly recommend the Irish Cream and Amaretto flavours (they're all alcohol free).

If someone who has a Costco membership buys you a gift card, you can go to Costco without a membership. Maybe if you have a friend or rellie that you can give cash to, they could pick one up for you.

I’m in the US, but if the UK has Kirkland brand coffee in Costco (Costco’s own brand) it’s generally good quality.

Would your local tescos or similar donate? May be wort asking

Would you mind saying roughly where you/the hospital is, OP?

How many are you buying for- one way to avoid the hoarding is a hamper/gift bag each with coffee tea biscuits.
It doesn’t just have to be from you show the community cares approach companies to see if they can supply a treat for the bundle or a contribution.
Just leave the biros out for the taking
Buying food on shifts could get unintentionally complicated and cause tension if they miss out being on the wrong shift catering to different diets etc.

I also think it is worth writing to companies and asking if they would donate supplies. You can also ask on local Covid groups as there are a lot of people like me who would happily chip in a fiver or buy a couple of jars of coffee to donate, doing something small to help healthcare workers is a lot more useful than clapping on the doorstep!

If you have local vommunity facebook pages ask. Our local itu asked for fruit this week and received loads from the community (2 stacked hospital trolleys), you might be surprised what you receive. We do a weekly donation. Pens are always asked for. Dont be afraid to ask for a certain type of product, people understand why and are happy to help. Someone can be a centeal luaison to collect and drop it off in one go.

This is the sort of thing that your local community would probably love to help out with if you made an Amazon wishlist

@ChudleyCannons.
You sound like a fab manager. Wish you were mine.

I would post on local Facebook groups asking if anyone has any contacts at Costco/Makro/Booker as you're looking to purchase bulk supplies of tea and coffee and hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised by the responses. It's being seen a lot at the mo.

You could set up subscribe and save on Amazon, then you don’t have to worry about topping up. They have huge bags of Yorkshire tea on there at the moment. 1000 teabags - should last the average NHS theatre about a week

Are people really interested in biros?!

I buy the tea and coffee for my office. Asda is normally cheaper than Costco so wouldn’t bother with a membership.

I’m sure if you put your banding/ bonus or non bonus/ chocolate orange/ minimum wage/ annual leave cancellation story on Facebook or a community group there would be people willing to make donations but just be upfront that that’s what you’d like rather than phrasing it like you’re looking for recommendations - just say you’re looking for help. Your message does get somewhat lost in the amount of information you’ve provided, I always find if you’re upfront and ask outright for what you want, a good proportion of the time you’ll actually get it.

Amazon does subscriptions!