Stock Management
The Foundation Foods team does our best to keep all of our inventory in stock and available at all times. However, this can be very challenging in practice due to unpredictable fluctuations in customer demand and brand supply. We greatly appreciate your understanding in this regard! We constantly strive to improve how we manage stock and communicate to our customers regarding out-of-stocks.
‘Known Out-of-Stocks’ Page
Quick Link: Known Out-of-Stocks
Our team maintains a spreadsheet that shows items we know are out-of-stock. Details include the approximate date we ran out, the anticipated date that we will get the product back in stock (based on our vendor’s estimates), and the reason we’ve been given for the stock delays, if available. Items that have recently come back in stock are also included on this spreadsheet.
A thorough line-by-line update of this sheet occurs every Thursday afternoon, and individual line items may be updated randomly when an item’s stock runs out or is replenished.
Items Removed from an Order
If you received a delivery that was missing a product you ordered, and the product appeared on the bottom of the invoice under the ‘Items removed…’ heading, then that item was out-of-stock at the time we filled your order. Please reorder this item on your next order, we do not backorder items.
If you’d like to be guaranteed a shipment as soon as we are back in stock, we recommend placing a separate order for these items and contact our team. Please check our ‘Known Out-of-Stocks‘ page for details about when we expect this item back in stock.
Long Term Out-of-Stocks
Sometimes we are out-of-stock on an item for an extended period of time.
Common reasons for this include: awaiting seasonal harvest, changes in a vendor’s production facilities, or overseas shipping delays. We apologize for this inconvenience. Items may be removed from our website entirely if they are unavailable for more than a month. Please contact our team if you have questions about a missing item, or if you’d like to reserve a pre-order case for when the product comes back in stock.
The Reality of Small Business Supply Chains
Most often, stock shortages lasting more than one week are due to delays in a vendor’s supply chain or production capacity. Many of our brands are very small operations and rely on specific supply chains or production facilities that can be very easily disrupted or delayed. Due to our desire to keep the inventory on our shelves as fresh as possible, we try not to over-stock on any products and therefore may run out if our vendor’s supply chain or production capacity is disrupted.
The Ways We Communicate Out-of-Stocks
We take the following steps to better manage and communicate out-of-stocks:
- Publish a ‘Known Out-of-Stocks’ spreadsheet that is available to view on our site. Here is the link.
- This sheet includes information about recently back-in-stock items.
- This sheet is updated thoroughly every week on Thursday Afternoons.
- We offer a weekly email with our stock spreadsheet straight to your inbox.
- ‘Items removed’ notes on the bottom of each invoice to show any items that were ordered but not delivered due to being temporarily out-of-stock.
- Items that are out-of-stock for more than one week will be marked as ‘out-of-stock’ on our website and are unable to be ordered.
- Items known to be out-of-stock for more than 2-3 weeks will be removed from our website entirely due to delays in getting restocked from our suppliers.
Help Us Do Better
If there are more steps you’d like to see us taking regarding our stock, please let us know via email at hello@foundationfoods.com. Thank you!