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January 11, 2013


This post expired on January 11, 2023.




The Market is now open!

Mother Earth Meats orders must be submitted by 7:00pm Monday
You can continue placing orders for everything else until 7:00pm Tuesday


CO-OP NEWS

Our group buy this week is from Mother Earth Meats. They provide a wide variety of pasture-raised/free-range poultry, beef, pork, and more at amazing prices. Please read all the details in the GROUP BUYS section below before you go to The Market and start ordering.

A note about membership fees: With the addition of this new website, the Melody Lane Co-op now charges a membership fee of $25 per year. This fee covers all of the little things that go on behind the scenes to get your order ready for you to pick up, including paying for office supplies, packaging materials, the power to run the co-op refrigerator, gas money/mileage for driving to meet the farmers, etc. In order to show appreciation to our existing members and help ease the transition to the new website, anyone that created (or creates) their account on the new website during the month of January is getting a discounted rate of $10 for their first year. Your membership fee will be automatically added to your 3rd order during checkout so some of you may see it this week or next week. I want to thank you in advance for supporting the Melody Lane Co-op and our efforts to make real food more accessible.

If the only reason you have come to the Melody Lane Co-op is to buy meat from Mother Earth Meats and you do not place orders for anything other than Mother Earth Meats products, I will be happy to waive the membership fee. It is not fair for me to charge a fee when the other drop off locations of the Atlanta area Mother Earth Meats buying club do not.


Have a great week!

Sandra Walker
Melody Lane Co-op Coordinator
melodylanecoop@yahoo.com
770-841-3437

FRESH & LOCAL


Pick up for all FRESH & LOCAL items is Thursday from 3:00pm to 7:00pm. If you need to schedule another time to pick up please contact Sandra.

As of right now the only FRESH & LOCAL items in The Market this week are from Carlton Farm. The growing season is about over for Moss Hill Farm but Floyd may still decide to post a few things here and there. I have just approved a couple of new vendors that make baked goods and other prepared dishes so hopefully they will begin posting their items soon. I will share more details about them once I get a chance to sample their food.

GROUP BUYS

This week:

Mother Earth Meats


Order deadline: Monday, January 14 – 7:00pm

Delivery: Saturday, January 26 (exact time TBD)

This is our first order with Mother Earth Meats using the new website. No more paper forms to fill out or Excel files to email. All orders for the Roswell delivery MUST be submitted through The Market. Call Sandra (770-841-3437) if you have problems placing your order.

The Mother Earth Meats order is a little bit different from most of the other items available in The Market.
Please read and understand the following before placing your order:

  • The delivery is a Saturday instead of our usual Thursday. We will not find out the exact time until a day or two before. You must be here during the delivery or make arrangements to drop off a cooler before the scheduled delivery time. As a group we order an average of 800 lbs of meat and I have no way to store all that, which is why it is important for you to be here or at least drop off a cooler ahead of time. Your meat will sit out in my carport until you come to pick it up.
  • You pay the farmer directly. He only accepts cash or check at the time of delivery (no credit cards). Please do not select “Pay Now” when you submit your order online. You can drop off payment at my house ahead of time, along with your cooler, if you know you will not be here during the delivery.
  • Order by the pound. The price you see listed is the price per pound. Enter the total number of pounds you want of a certain item and then add to cart. During checkout you can add comments if you have specific instructions. For example, if you want 2 two-pound roasts then you would add a quantity of 4 to your cart and then during checkout add a comment that you want 2 roasts at 2 lbs each. If you do not specify how you want it divided the farmer will give you whatever size packages he has that will fill your order. If you order 10 lbs of ground beef you may end up with 10 one-pound packages or 5 two-pound packages or somewhere in between. (There are two exceptions – whole chickens and beef hearts. See the item descriptions for more details)
  • Your order total at checkout is just an estimate. This is real food. Real food is not all the same size and does not naturally come in 1 lb increments. The farmer will do his best to come close to the total amount of each item that you order. In the end you may have a little more or a little less than what you ordered. Occasionally he will run out of something altogether. The price you pay on delivery day will be based on the actual weight of the meat you receive. From the time you place your order until about a day before delivery, the farmer will be working to fill all of our orders. As soon as he is finished he will email me your actual total and I will forward it on to you.
  • Please place a separate order for your Mother Earth Meats items. Since this farm requires a different delivery day and limited payment options, it will really help me keep things straight if you place one order for Mother Earth Meats products and a separate order for everything else. Thank you!

Here is some more information about Mother Earth Meats:

www.MotherEarthMeats.com
Mother Earth Meats is located in Maryville, Tennessee. They provide pastured, grass-fed, hormone-, antibiotic- and cruelty-free beef, bison, elk, goat, lamb, chicken, turkey, duck and pork, as well as other products like Druck’s raw milk cheese, organ meats, bones for broth/stock and traditional cooking fats. Most of their products are just sold locally, but they do make special trips select areas in the southeast a few times a year. We take part in their Atlanta area buying club.

I will be happy to answer any questions you have about their products, but here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:

  • There is NO sales tax or added delivery fee!

  • There are no nitrates or MSG in the uncooked sausages, fresh bacon or seasoned bacon.

  • Mother Earth Meats does not add any kind of salt or chemical washes to their meats, nor do they use gases to sterilize it.

  • Mother Earth Meats does not use any fertilizers at the farm, other than their own manure and homemade compost.

  • The chickens and turkeys are pastured/free-range and are given a limited amount of non-GMO feed which does include corn/soy.

  • Pork lard is already rendered and pork fat is not; the same is true for beef lard and fat (however, you can easily render it yourself in the oven).



  • In addition to my home in Roswell, the farmer will be delivering to a few other locations around Atlanta on the same day – see the list below. If you would like to pick up at a different location please email that coordinator for an order form. Please do not order through The Market for pick up at another location.


    Alpharetta/Johns Creek
    Phyllis Tatgenhorst
    (404) 271-8103
    ptatgenhorst@gmail.com


    Ballground
    Jenna Laughter
    (678) 294-9989
    jennalaughter@yahoo.com


    Dacula
    Maryanne Vaeth
    (770) 339-3065
    freshmilk@ranchoalegrefarm.com
    Warner Robbins
    Dena Sue Watts
    (478) 365-8354
    denasue@hotmail.com

    CONTACT INFO


    Sandra Walker
    Melody Lane Co-op Coordinator
    melodylanecoop@yahoo.com
    770-841-3437

    www.MelodyLane.LocallyGrown.net