Having made over 1000 boxes for vulnerable families in Cambridge via @RedHenCambridge (thanks to our customers 🙏🏽) My thoughts on the £30 box thing. Lots of factors at play here. 1/

If the pics in this @BootstrapCook thread are true and correct then the Govt/taxpayers & families in need are getting absolutely SHAFTED 👇🏽 2/ https://t.co/TZSTfMttNa
There are some mitigating circumstances. A £30 box won’t ever contain £30 (retail) worth of food - people aren’t factoring in
-the cost of the box
-paying someone to fill it
-rent & rates
-& most expensive the *transport/distribution*

3/
If you’re doing the above at scale. Delivering *across the UK* it’s not cheap BUT IMHO there should be at LEAST £20 worth of groceries in a £30 box. To get more value they need more fresh produce. Just carrots & apples is terrible. 4/
I’m gonna put my rep on the line here & say something about these big national catering companies whose names I’ve seen mentioned. They are an ASSHOLE to deal with & completely shaft small businesses like mine with their terms which is why I won’t deal with them. 5/
They want you to deliver their fruit&veg everyday for a month then expect 45, 60, 90 or 120 days credit. Even then, they don’t pay on time. 6/
Now here’s the killer. They use their buying power to ask for HUGE kickbacks, ie discounts by way of a returned cheque which enables them to show their customers the original invoices & say ‘look this is how much we paid’

It’s endemic in this industry & a shitty practice. 7/
It’s a difficult task distributing these boxes nationally. You need a good infrastructure so I get why the govt went to the big catering firms.

But I do wonder what’s going on at the highest levels of govt. sending £5 of food to the poorest & charging £30 is outrageous. 8/
Some of these big catering firms are really struggling right now & I have ZERO sympathy. Shitting on their suppliers is standard practice. I had to wait 6 months for payment once. Even then they pay by cheque to long it out further. 9/
So anyway. Any kind of outsourced catering in big institutions even your office canteen, it’s quite likely a handful of national companies are running it. They won’t think twice about shafting poor kids over. I’m not surprised to see this at all. 10/
Assuming there’s a kickback cheque (a) from the Govt, someone, somewhere is making a lot of money out of this whole situation. -fin.
Actually I’m not finished. I’m really pissed off writing these tweets. Like, payment terms. Who the hell in this day & age of fintech & faster payments needs ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY DAYS to pay a supplier. It’s sole purpose is to shit on you.
One business wanted 90 days to pay me. I told them our standard terms are 30. They said ‘if you want us to pay you ‘early’ then we want a bigger discount’

I politely told them to shove it. 🖕🏾
Anyway, my point still stands. If they can shit on their suppliers, they’ll take full advantage & shit on vulnerable families too. The proof is in the boxes all over social media today. I’m glad this is out. If they all go tits-up in this pandemic I’ll have no sympathy.
Im so pissed off right now. I went downstairs and replicated one of our Charity boxes. We developed this in conjunction with @RedHenCambridge I’m not gonna link to the shop cos it’s a bit bandwagonny. It shows you what can be done for £20 with top quality fresh local produce.
That’s £10 CHEAPER than the pittance that Compass are rinsing taxpayers for. Yes you can prob get more if this was supermarket gear. But this is greengrocer-quality seasonal nutritious produce. Those blueberries will be swapped for 400g local strawberries in Summer btw.
For absolute clarity I’ll make about £2 off that, for which I’ll pay rent, taxes, wages, biz costs, leaving me with about erm, not much. Our customers are brilliant. They’ve been sending these exact boxes to vulnerable families since the pandemic started. Compass can piss off.
I’m truly pissed off at this mornings news.

One last tweet from me.

Well I *did* say I wouldn’t swear any more. 🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️🤷🏽‍♂️

#foodparcels
Well this is kinda cool. Got a call from @bbc5live @BBCBusiness - I’ll hopefully 🤞🏽 be chatting to Wake Up To Money (I listen every day! Love this show!) about this at 5.30am tomorrow morning. Tune in folks!

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THREAD: Who are the rising stars of Chinese elite politics in the central Party-State bureaucracy?

For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing

TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)

https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2


Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year

All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress

Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)

https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2


Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office

He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022

Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)


Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office

He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years

Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)


Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012

Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)

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