The Food and Meat Co-op Live Clearance Show

NEXT LIVE CLEARANCE SALE:

Thursday April 20th from 2:00 - 3:00 pm through our app. RSVP on the Facebook Event page so you can receive a notification when we go live so you don't miss it (items go FAST)

1. RSVP to the FB event page so you get a reminder right before we go live.
2. Download the app and pre-register. (INSTRUCTIONS BELOW)
3. We still have a week to add more foods, so there will likely be a few more delicious offerings for up to 90% off! That list is on the FB event page and on the link to the blog post above. : )
4. Invite friends to come and participate too!

How to download the app and pre-register

1. If you are an Apple user, download the app HERE.

2. If you are an Android/Google user, download the app HERE.

3. Once you download, you can use your Facebook, Apple or Google account to login; OR you can register and have a login for this app that is not connected to any of the other platforms.

4. After you are logged in, head to your "account" button on the bottom right and click on "notifications" and make sure all notifications are on. You want this on so you can be informed when live sales start but also anything else!

What is the Live Clearance Show?

In our pursuit of finding and negotiating incredible FRESH food and meat deals each week, we come across a lot of food that needs "rescuing" in some way.

These are the types of foods we come across

1. Limited Quantity - if we have something that has less than 50 or 100, we don't list it on our website because there isn't enough quantity.

2. Overstock - warehouses and wholesalers very often just have too many in stock that they need to get rid of. We take them!

3. Clearance Foods - these are foods that are past or nearing their "best by" dates but still perfectly safe for consumption. These foods have the deepest discounts.

4. Random Sample Cases - These are foods that were samples for restaurants or wholesalers that need a home. Food brands send samples to wholesalers and restaurants all over, but many of them just end up unopened in a pile of random cases of food. We nab these too!

Between each live sale, we acquire and collect these foods as they are found (or often times find us!) and put them in our Live Clearance Show category.

We then create a scheduled time about once a month (for now) that lasts approximately 1-hour. This show is broadcast LIVE through our app (search Food and Meat Coop in your app stores), on our Facebook page, our Facebook Groups (general one, Cache Valley and Tooele Valley) and our Instagram page. Yes, in all of those places!

You then "tune in" to the Live Clearance Show during the allotted scheduled time and if there is anything you want to purchase, you will participate by using the "key word" = SOLD Plus the number attached to that item. For example, if an item is number 101 and you want it, you would type "sold 101" in the comments.

When you comment: SOLD in the comment section, our software will send you a message prompting you through your purchase. It is 100% secure and safe because there are third party apps that handle the payments (like Stripe).

When you have completed your transaction, the order comes through into our reports and your food gets put on the truck for the next pickup.

What happens during the LIVE show?

We will go live at the schedule time each month. You will receive a notification on your phone when the live show starts. For the first couple of minutes, we will share some greetings and co-op news to give everyone a couple of minutes to join.

When the actual sale starts, we will be presenting each item like this:

1. Before the item is EVEN up for sale, we will show it, give the retail price and clearance prices. We will describe the product, read ingredients and then we will say, "it is now going live." When it is live, we will then say, "comment Sold (and the number)" and that is your queue to comment. Also, the overlay uptop will sometimes be loaded faster than we can say, when you see that overlay, it is indeed live at that time. We will typically keep this product up until it sells out (most products have just a few in stock, with some up to 50 in stock).

2. We will announce when it is "sold out" and move on to the next product.

3. If you comment before we say "it's live" it will not register your comment.

4. We are always looking for and welcome suggestions. Our goal is to make this super fun, help our local food businesses not lose money on foods and provide some even bigger deals to our co-op participants.

Please be patient with us. From our view, it can be a challenge to see comments, so if you are asking questions or other information, we may not see it. However, we are bringing our husbands and children to watch for comments so they can tell us if anything is pressing. We are happy to answer any questions, we just don't always see them live.

Tips for How to "WIN" at this Food Game Show!

1. Checkout AFTER the show. Your products will accumulate during the live and so you can just keep adding products to your cart. If you checkout before, you will miss more products.

2. You DO need to checkout RIGHT after the show because items will only stay in your cart for 2 hours total. If you do not checkout by then, they drop from your cart into the next person's cart.

3. WAIT for the overlay at the top to appear with the number and price. If you comment before it technically appears, then it will not register your comment.

4. If something sells out during the live show and you want it, you can still potentially get it 1 of 4 ways:

1. If someone lets their cart expire (they only have 2 hours) and you have commented "sold" but it was sold out, it goes to the next person on the waitlist. You need to then checkout before the 2-hour window before it goes to the next person. So this method, you do have to pay attention to your email and text.

2. You can enable "automatic waitlist checkout" this is one way to be assured you don't have to keep checking. With this method, you can enable auto-checkout. So if the item lands into your cart, it will automatically bill you and it's yours! You DO have to go into the app and authorize this and save payment information. We have many people that do this and then get the expired cart items FIRST.

3. Go on the waitlist anyway and if we ever get this or a similar product in the future, we will manually notify you! This is not a commitment this way, but puts you in the system that this is the product or type of product you would be interested in in the future.

4. If you missed the live broadcast, you can STILL watch it later and STILL comment and you may still just get some or all of the items you want! It happens every time where someone watches it a couple of days later and was able to nab the items that expired from carts. :)

So even if a product "sells out" you still have a decent chance of getting one.

5. Make sure your notifications are set to ON in the app when you download. This is the only way to ensure you don't miss a show. A notification will go out reminding you about 30 minutes before and then another will go out right when the show starts. We will probably just talk for the first couple of minutes of the show with special co-op wide announcements to give a chance for others to get on to watch the live broadcast.

6. We will vary the days and times. We don't have access to the warehouse storing the food at just anytime. So the monthly schedule is FIRST determined by when we can be in the warehouse without disrupting their normal operations. This means it will almost always be a late afternoon/early evening when they have finished their regular warehouse duties. Second, we are trying to mix it up for those that do work and have varying work schedules. However, still watch and comment even after as you may still get some of the items.

7. We cannot manually override. We love and adore EACH and every one of our co-op members. That's why when we decided to do this, we knew we had to use a software that did all of the "dirty work."

We will be honest, this show is SUPER EXHILARATING and FUN! It's like a game show. But that means that the competitive spirits arise!

So the software knows who the FIRST was to comment from all platforms. It is feeding the app viewers, the Facebook page viewers, the Instagram viewers and all of our local group viewers into one pool and knows who was the first in any of those places. When you are watching live, depending on where you are watching, you MAY think you the first, but you may have just been the first in that platform, while someone watching in the app for example might have been a second or millisecond before you. :) It also knows the order of waitlist and the chain of which co-op participants cart it needs to go into next.

Even if you are a personal friend, best friends or even relatives of the hosts we cannot override any of the process - we still love you dearly, but we cannot do anything about your position in the queue ;)

If we touch the order, the carts or anything, we will mess it all up! This gives everyone the fairest chances so we don't have to decide who we think commented first or if you let your cart expire and it jumps into someone else's cart, we can't do anything about it. :) In the end, you will appreciate that our hands are tied on this end of it and we just get to show the foods and talk about it on air for just some pure game show fun!