Shop run

This page is historic

We now order the supplies online, using a supermarket delivery service.

Shop run advice

When Cakespace food supplies run low (sometimes before they run low, sometimes after they run out), someone (this could be you) will drive to a supermarket and replenish the supplies, either taking cash in advance from the honesty box, or buying by card and claiming it back from the box. The established practice is to leave the receipt in the bottom of the cashbox.

For non-food items check our Shopping List

The main food groups are as follows:

Fizzy drinks

Ordinary Coke is the most popular regularly available one. San Pellegrino (Aranciata etc) is very popular when you can get it cheaply enough to break even or better at our established rate of 50p per can.

Chocolate bars etc

Classics like Mars seem to be most popular. Supermarkets' own brand clones don't go very well. Buy in multipacks (typically 7s) for economy.

Crisps

Usual mixture

Noodles e.g. Pot Noodles

a late addition to our range, which has gone down very well. If they're in cardboard trays on the shelves, pick up a few whole trays. You could also get some of the more "proper oriental" varieties, both in bowls and in packets. I've also got some soup sachets, but haven't checked how fast they're selling (summer 2014). They might go faster in colder weather; at least they'll keep well.

I've tried getting yoghurt multipacks; these sell pretty slowly. Fruit hardly sells at all, and I suggest not bothering.

Logistics

The combination of heavy items (e.g. multipacks of drink cans) being typically more robust and lighter ones (e.g. crisp packets) being typically more fragile, with the last-in-first-out nature of stacking in the trolley, is inconvenient. For a really big shop run, I've done a separate trolleyload of cans first, then gone back for the rest. If you have more than one person on the shop run, I suggest getting separate trolleys and one doing the drink cans and the other(s) the chocolates and the crisps.

Asda

One of the Asda cashiers asked me suspiciously "You're splitting those and reselling them, are you?" as if I wasn't meant to do that. I said "no", as strictly speaking I'm just leaving them on a shelf for other people to split. If they try that again, one might try "Yes; please call a manager so I can explain why we'll take our trade elsewhere."

The self-service checkout weighing device gets confused after about 60 quids' worth of cans are loaded onto it, and will then make a lot of complaints about unexpected items, etc (even more than usual).

The self-service checkout cash input rejected a 50 note; I didn't experiment further, but took the next trolley-load to an attended checkout.

Turnover log

Please fill in how much you buy for Cakespace, and when, so we can get an idea of the turnover (with a view to planning online shopping orders).

January 2014:

JCGS about 100.00 Two other people bought some, too.

(This list seems to have been neglected for a while!)

August 2014:

JCGS about 208.00