Agent Representation Services
Acting as the agent of producer members, the Tree of Life Coop posts and publicizes the products the producers have for sale, receive orders, provides a way for products to be delivered to other members of the cooperative, collects from the customers and forwards the payments to the producers.
Acting as the agent for customer members, we provide them a catalog of available local food products that includes information about how and where the product was grown or processed. We receive their orders and notify the appropriate producers, arrange for the food to be delivered, receive and process their payments. For both producer and customer members, we provide a basic screening of products and producers based on our published parameters, and education and training regarding the use and the advantages of local foods.
For some of our producer members, we are agents that facilitate farm gate sales of their products. For other producer members, we facilitate off-farm sales or sales of processed products.
The essential business of the cooperative is to provide a marketplace where willing buyers and sellers can meet. At no time does the cooperative ever have title to any of the products. We have no inventory. The products that go through our distribution system are owned either by the producer, or by the customer who purchases "title" to the product from the producer. All complaints should first be brought to the attention of the producer, unless it is a situation where the cooperative itself is at fault (such as broken eggs due to poor packing). If a successful resolution can not be found by the affected producer and customer members, the cooperative's arbitration procedure can be invoked.