Cactus Shipment talk

   We have a query from a large organic-food distribution company… they asked me about shipping services we use, and what our shipments going out are like… this is what I wrote back….

   Most of the individual orders are for five to ten lbs for home chefs for home use,  and tortoise owners who feed it to their torts due to it’s phosphorus/calcium levels. It’s said to be optimum for shell and bone growth.

   Those are shipped by a combo of UPS Ground or USPS Priority Mail whichever the customer likes. It travels well…. evidently even a week in the box is not so bad. Cactus has a unique respiration system… also the leaves are adapted to getting knocked off and washed away in storms to re-sprout the leaves downstream…. so when plucked from the plant, they shut themselves down to await the end of the journey.  They have a waxy skin that seals the inside off. All in all, the physiological adaptations of cactus make it good for storage. You might find them to be good for a couple of weeks or more.

  We also get fifty lb orders. We ship those by UPS Ground. They are in 16″ cube boxes… for your uses the one with the three smaller boxes inside would be best. This keeps the weight off the bottom ones…. we don’t get as much weight in the boxes that way.. 40 lbs vs. 50.  But for resale, I think that’s your best option.

   On occasion we get the multi-thousand pound order from folks who process them. Those are shipped by Fed Ex Ground by the pallet. Each pallet is billed at 1,000 lbs… but tends to be 1,125 or so in weight.

   For commercial accounts, we give thirty day billing, and invoice with the shipment… that is if we are allowed to ship using your shipping account info. If there is no payment out of pocket for us, we are willing to give thirty day billing and special pricing… so don’t listen to the website on pricing at your level.

   You’ll find our cactus to be superior for restaurants and the home cook who is a bit unfamiliar with cleaning cactus. Ours needs only a kitchen scrubber pad to clean.  One or two demonstrations and your customers should have an idea of what to do with them.  If you folks wish to do demonstrations, I am willing to speak with you about special promotional pricing and shipping using your shipping accounts. This will give you the opportunity to promote the cactus leaves at little cost to you.  These are options we normally only extend to large buyers such as your company, and not made to the general public. My aim is to get more large commercial accounts.  We have superior material…and while we have many small orders, we want to get more large orders.  We have enough plantings to sell you plenty for some time… we have new plantings made this year that are coming into production, and we have more room to plant plenty more. So there is plenty of room for expansion.

  This is a good plant, a unique thing, and the big company that gets in first will be well placed. We have a big internet presence… we have many links to our site, we’re well branded…. when we’re big, anyone who’s been selling our leaves for some time will be glad they got in when they did.