Coliving Systems

Below are instructions, suggestions and resources for setting up your Shared Food Program. We hope this guide will provide a clear starting point, but ultimately you will need to create a system that works for your community. Make these your own and iterate it over time as you learn what works and what doesn’t. And please share with us what you create – we love sharing great solutions with the other OpenDoor communities!

Introduction

The Shared Food Program is one of the more complex parts of an OpenDoor coliving home. Food is very personal for most people and is a core part of everyone’s lifestyle. As you are setting up your new food system, it can be helpful to keep in mind that the food system is always imperfect, but ultimately intended to be net positive to the community. As such, we recommend just getting started with something imperfect and then tweaking it over time. (Note: this approach is applicable to most aspects of a coliving house 🙂)

Assigning the “Food Manager” Role and Dedicated Task Force

As described in the House Roles section, the Food Manager is a required resident role for managing the Shared Food Program. In our experience, most communities assign two or three people to this role to spread out the workload (essentially making it a task force). We have also found that there are usually at least a few people in every home that are passionate about food & cooking and make a natural fit for this role. This team is in charge of designing the food program in collaboration with the community, as well as managing the following:

• Food sourcing and buying
• Meal shift scheduling
• Budgeting and House Fund management

Sourcing: Creating Your Groceries & House Supplies Ordering List

First, you need to decide what you want to buy and from where you want to buy it. The goal of the shared groceries is not to supply 100% of groceries for all residents, but rather to cover the core staples that meet most residents’ basic needs and for the community dinners. Typically, specialty items such as snack foods and groceries for a specialty diet are bought by individuals to supplement the shared groceries. In addition, the program is intended to cover shared house supplies such as dish soap, paper towels, toilet paper, sponges, and more. There is an app called OurGroceries that can house communal lists!

Decide What You Want to Buy – This is a nontrivial task of figuring out what you want to purchase collectively. We recommend choosing core staples that a majority of resident want by using some sort of a survey or voting method.

• • Template: Start with the Default Food & Supply List.(Make a copy and edit from there.) This is a list of some of the most basic items that you will need in your home as well as frequency for ~15 people. This can be built on over time through the tools below as you dial in sourcing and add items.
  • Template: Food Sourcing Voting Form – This document provides a simple template for allowing members to vote on which food they want. We recommend setting a threshold for any particular item (e.g. at least 3 residents want it). 
  • Template: Food Program Survey – This survey is more complex than the above voting form, and includes broader questions to understand each residents’ preferences as values. As with all templates, please make sure to make a copy before editing. 

Key Purchasing Considerations to Discuss – Below are key areas of discussion that regularly come up during the food selection process. We recommend discussing these purchasing principals at a high-level before diving into the above-described voting process:

• • Organic vs. local vs. conventional foods 
  • Meat vs. vegetarian vs. vegan
  • Raw ingredients vs. prepped/processed foods
  • Alcohol vs. no alcohol

Food Clubs (optional) – Many houses have subgroups that choose to collectively purchase certain items (e.g. meat club, wine club, dessert club). This is a great strategy to avoid major debates around certain hot topic items like meat or booze. Members self-manage food clubs through Venmo or some other system where they can pool money to make these purchases outside of the formal Shared Food Program.

Decide Where You Want to Buy From – In order to reduce complexity, we recommend picking 3-4 core vendors for the majority of your sourcing needs. Most of our communities source heavily from vendors who deliver to reduce the workload of grocery shopping.

• • Farmer’s Markets – Buy local! Farmer’s Markets typically have good pricing and great organic options. With many vendors, we have been able to get wholesale pricing by building relationships with specific farmers, committing to buying from them each week, and letting them know we’re a large group house with high volume.
  • CSAs – most cities have CSAs that will deliver directly to your home, and have reasonable pricing, especially if you are buying in large volume. Some are sourced from a single farm, other aggregate from multiple farms. There are typically different types of CSA to choose from: vegetables CSAs, meat CSAs, and even fish CSAs.
  • Costco – Costco is a great option to keep your costs down. In addition, they have great selection of organic and natural foods. We’ve found Costco to be particularly good for staples like organic milk, eggs, cheeses, breads, and so forth. 
  • Regional Wholesalers – Reach out to OpenDoor to find out about any wholesale vendor relationships we have in your region. In addition, feel free to reach out to wholesalers directly – we are happy to setup a corporate account in our name (most places require a company and not an individual to setup a wholesale account).
  • Imperfect Produce – Imperfect Produce provides cheap, organic food that is slightly off shape or color, and thus does not make it to the grocery store shelf. They’re mission is around providing affordable organic foods by eliminating food waste. Also of note – they deliver!
  • GoodEggs – currently only available in the Bay Area, GoodEggs is a hybrid of a grocery delivery service and a CSA. They deliver direct to homes and source exclusively from local farmers and suppliers. They can be a bit pricey compared to the farmer’s market, but we have typically been able to get a 10-20% wholesale discount by setting up a wholesale account. 
  • Instacart – Instacart isn’t really a food source, but more of a delivery company for multiple grocery stores. Many of our homes use them to reduce the workload of grocery shopping. You can set up a recurring grocery list and simply reorder your favorite items each week. They do cost a little extra because of the service, and thus we recommend paying for their annual membership to eliminate the delivery fees. 
  • Thrive Market – Thrive Market is basically like Amazon for organic and natural non-perishable foods. They offer wholesale prices for a small annual membership. Great for things like organic nut butters, crackers, pickles, etc.
  • Amazon – Amazon can be a great source for house supplies and some non-perishable foods. Setting up recurring orders for things like toilet paper and paper towels can be a huge time saver.
  • Other Grocery Stores – Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, New Seasons, and just about any grocery store around will do. The main drawback is that they charge retail prices, so are often used to supplement to core suppliers listed above. 

Create a Dedicated Shopping & Sourcing List – This list is your core tool for capturing your core grocery list and associated vendor for each item. In some cases, it also serves as your tool for ordering, letting the Food Manager(s) know which items need to be ordered at a specific time.

• • Template: Shopping List & Ordering Form – This is an Airtable template that is a reasonably sophisticated tool for digitally managing all your grocery shopping and ordering needs. Click “Copy Base” in the top right to start customizing for your home.
  • Template: Master Grocery Shopping List – This is a simpler tool that can be used by shoppers. Pro Tip: print out this list and laminate it, and then have members mark each item with a dry erase marker as they run out. 
  • Food Ordering Whiteboard: Some houses choose a low-tech approach for ordering – a whiteboard where residents can write specific food items that need to be ordered, as they run out. Then the Food Manager(s) use the list for ordering, and double checking that the items listed match the preset list decided on by residents.

Community Dinners: Setting your Dinners Schedule & Cooking Shifts

• Set Your Dinner Schedule – We recommend scheduling regular community dinners on 2-3 nights of the week. 
• Create your Cooking & Cleaning Shift Chart – Residents will need to sign up for specific meal shifts each month. We recommend 2-3 people per meal for both cooking and cleaning. Culturally, we like to set the expectation that anyone who eats also help to clean, so that the workload is shared. That being said, we have found it’s important to have the cooking team ultimately be responsible for the cleaning, otherwise it may slip through the cracks. Some communities choose to split up cooking and cleaning shifts, whereas as others lump them all together.
  • Template: Meal Shift Sign-up Chart 1 (digital)
  • Template: Meal Shift Sign-up Chart 2 (digital or for print)
  • Template: Group Cooking Tips & Recipes
• Set Your Dinner Guest Policy – Dinners are typically open to guests, as it’s a great way to bring over friends in a structured way and to build your home’s broader sense of community beyond just the members. Given the fact that the Food Program is shared and paid for by residents, we’ve found that it’s important to have clear guidelines for how guests can participate and contribute:
  • Best practice is to ask that any guests bring food and/or drinks to share, or pitch in some money to the house. 
  • Several houses have agreed on a standard price for dinner (e.g. $5) and have a Venmo account or jar set up at the house, and treat it as a honor system or gift. You might print a small sign out saying something akin to: “As a house, we buy food together and kindly ask that any guests, if they feel so inspired, contribute a $5 gift to the house to help support this system so we can keep future dinners like this going!”
  • Some communities have decided to keep one meal per week for residents-only, as a way to make sure the members are getting quality time together. This is especially important if your dinners end up being highly social events with lots of guests coming over regularly.

House Fund: Setting and Managing Your Monthly Budget

The House Fund is described in detail in the appropriate section of this knowledgebase. There you will find how to setup your House Fund account with Chime. Below is an overview of the process as it relates to the food system.

• Choose Your House Fund Manager – In most cases, this person will also be one of the Food Managers, since the House Fund is so intimately tied to the Food Program, it is important to have on person in charge of managing the House Fund. This person is in charge of setting up the House Fund account, managing the monthly budget, making payments to vendors and reimbursements to residents. 
• Set Monthly Per-Resident Price – The monthly food program amount is set by community, while collections are managed by OpenDoor through our online billing systems (typically billed on the same invoice as your monthly rent and utilities). We recommend starting around $150-$175 per person for the overall House Fund contributions with $10-20/mo per person intentionally allocated for other collective purchases – plus, it’s way easier to manage a surplus than a deficit. Additionally, we require that everyone be on a single price point, not a multi-tier price structure, for the following reasons:
  • It’s administratively too complicated for us to change the food program fee each month, as well as difficult for budgeting by the House Fund Manager.
  • With a consistent budget, there is sufficient purchasing power for bulk/wholesale purchases that ends up being cheaper for everyone. The net reduction in costs is typically greater than any potential inequity in consumption between residents. 
  • We have found once you can move between two tiers, it creates a gamification issues where people micromanage their consumption to try to save a few bucks, while overall making the program less effective.
  • We do allow an opt-out option for people with special dietary needs or  long-travels, but strongly discourage for other members. Members must opt-out for a minimum of one month, no partial months.
• Decide on Your Purchasing Protocols – we recommend having a few dedicated shoppers and a regular purchase schedule. These shoppers are typically the Food Managers, though can also include other residents. Try to avoid ad hoc purchases by housemates, as these can bloat your budget. The House Fund manager should closely manage purchasing each month to keep within budget – we recommend that all purchases be approved by the House Fund manager. Below are the three main types of purchases:
  • Online – create online accounts for each online vendor with the House Fund card set up as the payment card. Food Managers should do all the purchasing, though in some cases other residents will be given access. 
  • In-Store – ideally purchases made by food shoppers using the House Fund card. This makes it easier to track spending rather than reimbursements. That being said, ad hoc purchases often happen for convenience sake (e.g. “Sarah, can you grab some milk on your way home from work?”) and can be handled via reimbursements. Most houses set up a Venmo account attached to their House Fund for reimbursements. 
  • Farmer’s Markets – farmers and food vendors often require cash, so this is typically done by food shoppers buying directly and then being reimbursed from the House Fund. 
• Create Your Expense Tracking & Budgeting System – It’s important to make sure you are keeping within budget each month. Below is a template for monthly budgeting and expense tracking:
  • Template: Monthly Expense Tracking & Budget Spreadsheet

Kitchen Labeling & Signage

In a shared kitchen, it is essential to have good signage and proper labeling protocol. Below are our recommendations on this front: 

• Labeling Protocol
  • Anything unlabeled is by default shared. All private food must be labeled with your name.
  • Typically, there are dedicated areas or shelves in the fridge / pantry for personal items (which is usually a small percentage of the total storage space)
  • All leftovers (even personal) should be labeled with a date. This is important both for food safety and for knowing when to throw away old food so it doesn’t clutter your fridge.
  • It can also be helpful to dedicate and label specific shelves, cabinets, etc for specific types of food, for better organization.
• Signage – We strongly recommend having signs that clearly spell out kitchen protocols and agreements. 

• Template: Kitchen Cleanliness Sign
• Template: “The Black Arts of Dishwashing” Sign
• Samples:
  • Euclid Manor Kitchen Standards Sign (PDF, Photoshop)
  • Euclid Manor Cast Iron Sign (PDF, Photoshop)
• Signage Guide

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