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Good Suppliers - ethical companies?


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Hi you lovely knowledgeable people,

I've posted here a while ago when we were planning to set up a new Nature focused nursery and after a lot of work from an amazing team we are nearly there. We just had our Ofsted interview and are now planning to open our doors in January 2019 - Yeah! One of the less exciting jobs on my to do list now is to find suppliers for all those essentials, cleaning products, health and safety equipment (fire signs, First Aid etc), office stuff and of course nursery resources. Can anyone recommend good, reliable companies, ideally ethically minded (e.g. for 'green' cleaning resources)? I look forward to your replies.

Kind wishes

Poppy33

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Mindstretchers is wonderful, as finleysmaid says.   Also don't forget second hand, charity shops, ebay auctions, car boot sales etc for both toys and loose parts.   You might not know if they were ethically sourced in the first place, but at least you would be re-using.  It sounds a very exciting project - do let us know more!

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Have you looked at Suma?  Based in Leeds I think they deliver everywhere more or less.  Not sure what your priorities are, but both Method and Ecover have recently been bought out by a company (Johnsons?), which is open about their use of animal testing for many of their other products.  Just this week I have changed my cleaning products from Method and Ecover to Suma's own Ecoleaf.  

I am a member of a Suma food coop and many of my clients have become members.   It's a bit of a service and helps with community building that continues long after the children have moved on to school.  It does require trust from everyone's perspective though.  Delivery is free for orders over £250.  We have a meeting every six-eight weeks and generally order about £1000 of shopping at a time.  Sometimes our meetings are 'virtual' which is easier but less social.  It's great for delivery of bulky items like loo and kitchen rolls, but requires storage.  You'll need to set up an account before you can see the prices.  Not always cheaper than the shops but I save by giving up my car.

The kids love helping with deliveries - carrying and sorting - and there are boxes to play with when the sorting's done! 

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Thank you for all your good ideas! I forgot about SUMA. I was part of a food coop using SUMA when I was a student. Great to hear they're still going.The nursery itself will be quite small, only 24 children, but we're part of a community enterprise involving a cafe and a community space in an old children's centre. Money is quite tight until we start making some through hall hire etc. so can't really but new resources just this yet, but it's good to start a wish list!

We've just had our Ofsted Registration approved - yeah! So now we can start to book parents in. Tomorrow is our first registration day for parents, how exciting! NO doubt I'll be on here frequently for support and advice :).

Poppy33

 

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10 hours ago, Poppy33 said:

We've just had our Ofsted Registration approved - yeah! So now we can start to book parents in. Tomorrow is our first registration day for parents, how exciting! NO doubt I'll be on here frequently for support and advice :).

How exciting! Look forward to hearing more from you :D

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10 hours ago, Mother_Goose said:

Not an education supplier per se, but Babi Pur is a Welsh company with a focus on ethical and sustainable children's toys and equipment. Not the cheapest, but you know they source everything themselves and visit the manufacturing plants where they can to check welfare etc. 

Urrrmmm think I might have mentioned that one alreadyxD:D

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