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!!

Honestly , in a nursing or medical setting, people are REALLY interested in biros!

Keep the coffee instant! Whose job would it be to empty the pot? It would be left. Disgusted for you that you were provided with Maxwell House a(tastes like Earth!). I agree that some big supermarkets do have the big tins of coffee. My colleague used to get the big tins of Gold Blend for a course we used to run and a big bag of tea bags too.

If my local Facebook asked people to buy them coffee, tea and biccies and leave them at a collection point, I would help. I think LOADS of people would. Just ask , better than clapping!

Home Bargains website worth a look too - they sell bulk quantities of lots of things.

we get 2 sachets of maxwell house per person per day (cheers Sodexo)

The reason you get two sachets per day is most likely because if there were unlimited supplies, people would take them home in preference to buying their own coffee. Even Maxwell House. I expect that that awful Martin Lewis bloke has included this in his book of tips for saving money.

We had to knock unlimited free tea and coffee on the head at the office locations of a business I worked for. We allowed the teams to buy decent stuff, ground coffee, and provided coffee making equipment. The team leader bought supplies and claimed them back on expenses. These started to run to many hundreds per month, for a team of twenty in each location. Turned out that nobody in the team saw the need to buy their own coffee, tea or milk when they worked out that they could get it for free at the office. Some were supplying their entire families, in bulk. So watch out, OP!

You can get a Costco online membership and they will deliver to you.

These started to run to many hundreds per month, for a team of twenty in each location. Turned out that nobody in the team saw the need to buy their own coffee, tea or milk when they worked out that they could get it for free at the office. Some were supplying their entire families, in bulk

You must work with some awful, cheeky people. Almost no-one would think to steal from work like that.

Some people have really got out of bed the wrong side today haven't they?

Are you even using communal things like pens right now? Seems....hazardous

All the NHS staff I know don't have time to stop for a drink of cold water, let alone a coffee, and you've already said that the tea bags you have in bulk have crumbled from being around for too long. I understand the desire to do something nice for your own team, but are you sure this gesture will have the desired effect, particularly if you work with hoarders?

I would be careful about communal takeaways and large catering packs that are not individually wrapped as these have been attributed to several outbreaks of C19 amongst staff groups.

Where are you roughly? In my area a local charity would probably help you.

Try a catering firm like Nisbets: www.nisbets.co.uk/tableware-and-bar-supplies/beverage-service/tea-and-coffee-consumables/_/a33-3?page=1&per-page=12&sort=match-rate-desc&view=grid

They supply coffee and tea bits for hotels etc to stock in rooms in bulk, so usually a bit nicer than the Maxwell House stuff. Not to mention decent cups, water boilers etc if you need them.

It should go without saying but thank you for all you and your team are doing. You should be being paid better and given these things by the government, it's really the least we could do as a country - sod the fucking clapping.

Second the suggestion to pop an appeal on Facebook/your local covid support group, people may be more generous than you'd think x

@HoppingPavlova
agree, tbf I’m not a fan of asking for donations for NHS staff, they’re one of the few who have not had their earnings decreased or furloughed, I haven’t seen other fully employed ppl getting freebies.
OP could as easily ask for a £2 from everyone at work and get some supplies in, as many workplaces do.
Surely she knows how to google and buy things 🤷🏼‍♀️

Just because it's AIBU doesn't mean people HAVE to be cunts to the OP.

Buying stuff in bulk from supermarkets/home bargains / b&m can get you looks from people, comments from staff, and some supermarkets won't let you bulk buy. Much easier to find a wholesaler

[quote HerMammy]@HoppingPavlova
agree, tbf I’m not a fan of asking for donations for NHS staff, they’re one of the few who have not had their earnings decreased or furloughed, I haven’t seen other fully employed ppl getting freebies.
OP could as easily ask for a £2 from everyone at work and get some supplies in, as many workplaces do.
Surely she knows how to google and buy things 🤷🏼‍♀️[/quote]
The reason NHS staff have not had their earnings reduced or been furloughed is that many are working way over their hours in extremely stressful situations, often in areas that they have never worked in, with annual leave having been cancelled - I cannot believe your comment

B and M do massive bags of teabags.

A friend of mine is a nurse and recently set up an Amazon wishlist for her hospital. She shared the link on Facebook incase anyone wanted to donate some treats (like nice tea and biscuits, bottles of water, soup sachets, cereal bars etc) to the staff.

I know you're not asking for donations, but I'm sure friends and family would be will to help.

Thinking about this, my office normally gives all staff free tea and coffee, they have machines but also stock up mini kitchens around the building. Normally they have 3000 staff on site, currently only a handful. So they are saving money on all that as well as heating etc and aren't the type of business that has been losing out as part of lockdown. If you have any major, office based employers nearby, it might be worth asking if they have any excess supplies to donate. I'd bet a lot would, they may even have stuff that will go out of date before folks return to work that would be good not to be wasted.

I think you could have saved yourself a lot of words by just saying 'Can you please tell me where I can buy good quality coffee and tea in bulk and do I need membership to do so?'

I don't understand why you need to say that leave has been cancelled until May, parking charges are going up or how hard anyone works or that your DH will let you spend £300 of your money on it. Have I missed your point on this?

Are refreshments not something the c£30million charitable donations raised for the NHS covers?

Have I missed your point on this?

I suspect that 'Google is broken: where do I buy wholesale/catering packs of beverages?' was never the point of this thread, or the second thread that the OP inexplicably started in Chat because 'Costco' was too oblique a response

Anyone can get a Costco card, the only difference between a commercial and personal cards...

Not the case. There are qualifying requirements. I am eligible, my husband is not, although because I am a member, he has a spouse card.

@ChudleyCannons I can probably get some boxes of pens sent to you, but they'll be our company branded ones that are going spare before a rebranding, any good?

I'm an NHS worker and we all put 2 quid in a month. The housekeeper buys decent coffee and teabags, herbal and fruit tea bags, nice cordials, flavoured water infusions, sparkling and plain bottled water etc. No biscuits. We all buy our own pens.

To be honest, although it is physically and emotionally draining, caring for Covid patients, we are not in need of charitable donations. I would rather see 300 quid's worth of food donations go to a foodbank or women's refuge.