Members' Guidelines
Our Members’ guidelines are really important as they explain how our community works. Our model is a bit unusual for Singapore, hence we strongly recommend you read them to have a good understanding of how we work. Hopefully, it will suit you!
'Shiok' is commonly used in Malaysia & Singapore. Expression of happiness, pleasure. It conveys a feeling of strong taste buds tingling (when used with regards to food).
1. STEP ONE – LEARN ABOUT HOW OUR PROGRAM WORKS
At ShiokFarm, our focus is on delivering organic grown farm fresh food at affordable prices to families in Singapore. We identify farms in South East Asia that are growing beautiful organic produces for our members.
Each week we take a survey of their fields, and they harvest the crops that are at their peak and ready to be picked. They ship the products to a warehouse in Singapore where our team packs them into bags for every member and has them ready for delivery on appointed days. The harvest season runs all year long, thanks to our climate in this region.
This program is a Partnership between the Members and the Farmers . At the core of this partnership is the idea that members support their farmer by sharing in the inherent risks of agriculture (poor weather, drought, disease, early frost, crop failure and so on) and rewards (the bounty from a good season!). Therefore while ShiokFarm will act in good faith to provide fresh organic produce for its members, there is no guarantee of quantities or contents of weekly shares, or bags. You might like to note that we have been running since November 2015 and have never been running short of produces to put in our bags!
In November 2017, we launched our Wine Box program. Similar to our organic vegetables and fruits program, we work with winemakers of organic and biodynamic wines.
2. STEP TWO – CAREFULLY READ OUR POLICIES
MEMBER RESPONSIBILITIES
STAY INFORMED!
The single most important responsibility of all members is to educate themselves about the workings of our program by thoroughly reading through our Guidelines and reading the weekly news posted both on our Facebook Group and your local WhatsApp group. The news contains important information about what is in the bag, general information and details about the harvest.
On our Facebook group (www.facebook.com/groups/shiokfarm), we also post a weekly menu along with the content of your bag. We will suggest a few recipes in English but we depend on you to grow our recipe list. Please do share on our Facebook group your favorite recipes with the community: you will allow bringing variety to everybody’s plates!
PICK UP YOUR BAG!
As a member, you must pick up your bag of organic vegetables and fruits on your chosen pick-up day during the pick-up window. Please choose from one of our many available pick-up locations. You must pick up your bag on the day you have chosen each week. If you cannot pick up your bag (you are busy, sick or on holidays), you are welcome to have a friend or neighbor pick up your bag that week. Please login to our website and fill up the Holidays form to let us know your friend's name, phone number and email. Let them know we will be in touch to share with them information about the collection point and other logistics aspects. If you do not pick up your bag and make no arrangements to have someone else pick it up for you within the two hours each Collection point is open, then you forfeit your bag that week and it will be donated to local charities, after-school programs or elder care facilities, at our absolute discretion. There is no refund for unclaimed bags.
COLLECTION POINTS:
- Bukit Timah x Farrer Road
- Caldecott
- Clementi
- Harbour Front
- Holland Road x Farrer Road
- Holland Village
- Joo Chiat
- Katong
- Kovan
- Novena
- Serangoon Gardens
- Sophia Road
- Tan Kah Kee
- Tanglin North
- Tanglin South
- River Valley
- Balmoral
- Bedok/Siglap
- Bishan
- Depot Road
View a map with our Collection points here.
If you are a member of our Wine Box program, note that the box will be delivered to your door the first week of each month. Please use the vacation form when you are off travelling so that we can arrange another time and/or location for your Wine Box delivery.
Once you become a member, make sure you have joined the Whatsapp group that corresponds to your collection point and read the messages sent by the member who manages this collection point (ie: your host). Your host will use this Whatsapp group to let you know when delivery has occurred. Do not show up to the Collection point earlier or later than the agreed time. Please, do not ask the host to keep your bag if you are late, ask someone on the WhatsApp group to help you out. Note that your host is doing this on a voluntary basis so that we do not have to pay for storage costs; your responsibility is to be on time.
A Collection point needs to have at least ten members to be operational. In the event that a Collection point gets less than 10 members, ShiokFarm reserves the right to close it down without notice.
In the unlikely event that one of your vegetable or fruit looks uneatable (not a bit damaged, really uneatable), please send us a picture of the faulty item within 24 hours of its reception: we have only 24 hours to let the farmer know about any faulty items if we want to get it replaced the next week.
BE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN THE PROGRAM!
We encourage all of our members to become active participants in the Program. You can do this by staying up to date with the news. Communication is critical! Please e-mail us often with your comments, suggestions and concerns.
3. OUR BAGS
ShiokFarm program is a 26-week (6 months) membership program.
Organically grown produce is picked fresh from our partners’ fields, sorted and delivered at your collection point. This share/bag contains approx. 10 to 15 items grown organically, depending on the availability. All seeds are organic. We practice biodiversity and bio-intensive gardening methods.
We have four sorts of bags, with approximately 60% vegetables and 40% fruits:
- the 3kg Essential Bag, contains organic produces which have the highest pesticide levels when grown non organically (i.e.: the Dirty Dozen). We have put this bag together to support parents concerned about the quantity of pesticides their children intake. This bag will need to be completed by other sources.
Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce every week; Green beans, potatoes and sweet potatoes, every other week; Carrots, baby spinach or kale, capsicums occasionally.
Bananas every week, most weeks you will have apples or pears. Depending of the season, we might include other fruits and vegetables.
- the 3kg Essential + 2kg Top-Up bag contains an extra 2kg of produces that are not part of the Dirty Dozen. This top-up is to allow more variety in your weekly bag. We will add 2kg of produces that can be found in the 7kg Standard bag.
- the 7kg Standard bag complements very well a 3kg Premium bag. It was created for bigger families. We kept a focus on the Dirty Dozen and you will find a mix of the following items, whenever available:
Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes and/or sweet potatoes every week. Every other week: zucchinis, carrots and eggplants. Occasionally: sweet corn, pumpkin, butternup pumpkin, cauliflower, baby spinach, kale, capsicums, leaks, ginger.
Fruits
Most weeks you will get banana
- the 3kg Premium bag complements very well a 3kg Essential or the 7kg standard bag. We kept a focus on the Dirty Dozen and you will find a mix of the following items, whenever available:
A mix of avocado, brocoli, tomatoes on vine, baby carrots, tomatoes beef, baby spinach every other week; And occasionally some kale, arragula (roquette), asparagus, mushrooms, belgium endives, fennel, French beans extra fine.
Fruits
Every week: some berries (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries)! :) Occasionally some cherries, clementines, apple, pears, pomegranate, nectarine, and whatever we can find that is in season and delicious!
These prices include delivery at the collection point.
3. OUR WINE BOX
Our Wine Box is also a six months program. We work with wine makers who are passionate about their work and selecting the wines and shipping them over is a long process. You can choose between a box of six bottles or a box of three bottles. All our wines are organic or biodynamic wines. These are wines that contain less sulphites than the conventional ones => less headache the next day! :)
You will be asked to pay for a $200 deposit. This deposit will be given back to you the day you leave the program, you just have to give us a two months notice: we want to make sure the wine we have ordered will not be wasted.
Our Wine Boxes are delivered the first week of the month, to your door. Please go to "Edit my Account" on our web site to let us know what is your preferred time of the day for the delivery. Note that the delivery cost is included in the price, provided that it happens between 9am and 6pm, week days. We can deliver your Wine Box in the evening or on week-ends, but there will be a fee chargeable for this: $15 for evenings and $30 for week-ends, to be paid directly to our delivery team. In the unlikely event that there is an issue with your wine, please let us know asap. Someone will drop by to pick up the bottle and replace it with a new one. Note that we will not exchange bottles that are more than half empty.
One last thing: please drink responsibly! :)
If you are happy with these guidelines and want to become a Member, please register to become a member here.
