With everything in the news at the moment, you won’t be surprised that we are also facing the decision to increase our prices. We’ve been in touch with our box customers directly (if you haven’t received an email, give us a shout!) and we wanted to provide a bit more context to the decision. Transparency is the name of the game for us at Regather, so in this post we’re sharing with you the challenges we’re facing; price comparisons with supermarkets and our plans going forward.
We are facing the same rising costs experienced by all our customers and local businesses. In December we published a blog about Our Cow Molly and the price increase they implemented due to rising plastic, fuel and energy costs. Supplier price increases mean that we need to find ways to continue to support them. The impact of rising costs doesn’t stop there. Day to day, we are feeling the pinch: from fuel for our vans to compost for the farm, it’s all been creeping up in price. And we know that our customers are experiencing this too.
We’re really proud that we were able to commit (finally!) to a Real Living Wage for all our staff last year. The Real Living Wage is set by the Real Living Wage Foundation to reflect living costs in the UK, rather than what businesses can afford to pay, which is how the National Minimum and National Living wages are calculated. The Real Living Wage is paid voluntarily by almost 9000 businesses in the UK and is something that we are dedicated to providing. We have a completely flat pay structure and currently all staff are being paid £9.50/hour. To stay a Living Wage employer, and support our staff as living costs rise, we need to increase this to £9.90 before May 2022. You can find out more about our commitment to the Real Living Wage on this blog post.
Regather Farm is still a way off meeting all of its costs. The level of investment over the last 3 years is starting to level off, but like any business, we need our sales to meet our on-going costs. Increasing the amount of local produce is a massive priority for us because it is one of the main reasons our customers join us. But the reality is that the demand for local produce massively outstrips supply. Only through investing in our Farm can we have a role in helping to increase the availability of local produce.
Increasing our prices is not something we do lightly. Staying affordable is one of our key values and really important to our members. So we’ve been doing comparisons of our prices with those of other box schemes and supermarkets. Comparing everything from delivery fees to how much a portion of organic apples costs from us or Waitrose.
Overall, our prices are almost always offering better value for money compared to buying the same or similar products elsewhere. While we want to stay on the better value side of the scale, this needs to be balanced with covering our costs.
After crunching the numbers, we are increasing our box prices by 60p across the range of the fruit and veg boxes. We are not increasing our delivery costs. This change will come into effect from Monday 14th February.
| Box Type | Old Price | New Price |
| Veg S | £6.75 | £7.35 |
| Veg M | £9.50 | £10.10 |
| Veg L | £13.25 | £13.85 |
| Veg No Potato S | £7.75 | £8.35 |
| Veg No Potato M | £10.50 | £11.10 |
| Veg No potato L | £14.25 | £14.85 |
| Plastic Free | £13.00 | £13.60 |
| UK Only | £13.00 | £13.60 |
| Veg XL | £22.25 | £22.85 |
| Fruit XS | £4.50 | £5.10 |
| Fruit S | £6.50 | £7.10 |
| Fruit M | £8.60 | £9.20 |
| Fruit L | £10.50 | £11.10 |
| Fruit XL | £12.75 | £13.35 |
We’ve also heard from our friends at Forge Bakehouse that they have had to increase their prices too. This will also come into effect on Monday.
| Item | Old Price | New Price |
| Croissant/Vegan Croissant | £1.80 | £1.95 |
| Pain au choc | £2.20 | £2.40 |
| Portuguese Custard Tart | £1.80 | £1.95 |
| Snurr | £1.80 | £1.95 |
| Swirl/Vegan Swirl | £2.20 | £2.40 |
| Teacake | £1.00 | £1.00 |
| Granola | £6.20 | £6.35 |
| Dark Peak | £2.60 | £2.50 |
| Light Rye | £2.00 | £2.10 |
| Light Rye Caraway | £2.10 | £2.25 |
| Millstone L | £3.40 | £3.60 |
| Millstone S | £2.00 | £2.10 |
| Pizza Dough | £1.00 | £1.00 |
| Mr Potato Bread | £2.80 | £2.95 |
| Seeded Millstone L | £4.20 | £4.40 |
| Seeded Millstone S | £2.80 | £2.95 |
| Sesame Linseed L | £4.20 | £4.40 |
| Sesame Linseed S | £2.80 | £2.95 |
| White Peak L | £3.40 | £3.60 |
| White Peak S | £2.00 | £2.10 |
We’re here to chat if you have any concerns, or to help adapt your box to better meet your needs. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at box@regather.net. We’ve got an exciting year ahead of increased farm productivity and a big membership launch and we can’t wait to share it with you.
