The fine print
Membership terms and conditions
These apply to membership of the Chefs Depot buying group, and sit alongside our general terms of sale.
1. Membership and eligibility
Membership of the Chefs Depot buying group is open to businesses buying for commercial use. One membership applies to one trading account. Chefs Depot may decline or end a membership where an account is not buying for commercial use, or where the account is used to obtain member pricing for resale outside the terms agreed with us.
Member pricing is tied to your account. It applies when you are signed in, and to quotes issued to that account. Membership is not transferable between businesses.
2. Account users and access
Each membership has a primary contact who is responsible for the account. You may nominate additional users — a head chef, venue manager or bookkeeper, for example — and they buy at your account's pricing.
The primary contact is responsible for everything done under the account, including orders placed and information accessed by nominated users, and for removing users who should no longer have access. All activity on the account, including orders placed by nominated users, is visible to the primary contact.
A membership covers one trading account. Where you operate more than one venue under separate trading accounts, each account needs its own membership, and spend is counted separately for each.
3. Fees and billing
Membership is charged monthly in advance. Current fees are shown on the membership page and are inclusive of GST.
Fees are charged to the payment method held against your account on the same date each billing period. Where a payment fails, we may retry it, and member pricing may be suspended until the account is brought up to date.
We may change the membership fee on 30 days written notice to the email address on your account. A change takes effect at your next renewal, and you may cancel before it applies.
4. Automatic renewal
Membership renews automatically at the end of each month, using the payment method held against your account, at the fee current at that time.
The recurring monthly charge is your notice of renewal.
To stop a renewal, cancel before the renewal date. Cancelling on or after the renewal date does not reverse that period's charge.
You can turn off automatic renewal at any time from your account or by contacting us. If you do, membership ends at the close of the period already paid for.
5. Cancellation and refunds
You may cancel at any time, from your account or by contacting us. There is no contract term, exit fee or notice period.
On cancellation, membership and member pricing continue to the end of the period already paid for, and no further payment is taken.
Membership fees are non-refundable. All membership transactions are final. No refund or pro-rata credit is given for any unused part of a billing period, whether you cancel, stop using the account, or your membership is ended under these terms.
Nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, which apply to goods you buy from us regardless of your membership.
6. How member pricing is calculated
Member pricing is derived from our current trade price list at the moment it is displayed. Chefs Depot does not hold a separate price list. Where the trade price for an item changes, the member price for that item changes with it.
Your trailing spend determines where between the advertised price and the deepest member price your account sits for each item, as a continuous proportion rather than in steps. The deepest member price on any item is set 1% above our wholesale trade price for that item, and nothing is ever sold below it. You reach it at $50,000 of rolling twelve-month spend. The distance between those two prices is set per item and differs between products and brands. No fixed percentage discount applies, and none is represented.
Prices displayed exclude GST unless stated. Freight, installation and third-party services are quoted separately.
7. Spend and your pricing
Your price is set by your spend on goods over the rolling twelve months ending at the date of calculation, excluding GST, freight, installation and third-party services. Clearance, end-of-line, supplier-funded and Partner Special purchases count toward your spend at the amount actually paid.
Only spend made during periods for which membership fees have been paid counts toward your pricing.
Pricing is reviewed on the first of each month and moves with your trailing spend. Where spend falls, your pricing is unchanged for ninety consecutive days, and any adjustment after that is limited to one sixth of the full range per review.
The order being placed does not count toward the spend used to price it. Refunds and credits reduce spend for the period in which the original purchase falls.
8. Leaving and rejoining
When a membership ends, member pricing ends with it, and the account returns to our standard price.
If you rejoin within 30 days, your previous pricing is restored and your spend history carries over.
If you rejoin more than 30 days after a membership ends, your spend starts again from zero, and only spend from the new membership counts toward your pricing.
9. Offers, clearance and Partner Specials
Member pricing does not combine with other offers. Where a clearance, end-of-line or promotional price is lower than your member price, the lower price applies. You receive one or the other, never both.
A Partner Special is a fixed price that applies to every customer, members included. No member price or other discount applies to a Partner Special, even where your member price would otherwise be lower.
Partner Specials are limited by available stock and may be withdrawn or changed at any time. Where a Partner Special is supplied by a third party, that supplier's own terms apply to the goods, and we will identify the supplier at the point of offer.
Indent and special-order lines, freight, installation and third-party services are quoted on their own terms and member pricing does not apply to them. Some brands and products are also excluded from member pricing under our agreements with their suppliers, and we may add or remove a brand from that list as those agreements change. All exclusions are identified on the relevant product page, and what you spend on them still counts toward your pricing on everything else.
10. Quotes and price changes
Prices are subject to change without notice. Our trade prices move when our suppliers move theirs, and member pricing is calculated from those prices at the moment it is displayed.
A quote is an estimate based on the prices current when it was issued. It is not a fixed-price offer. The prices on it may change before you accept it — because a supplier price has moved, or because your pricing has changed at a monthly review. We will tell you about any change before an order is accepted.
Once we accept your order, the price for that order is fixed and does not change.
11. Pricing errors
Where a price is displayed in obvious error, we may correct it and decline or cancel an order placed at the incorrect price, and will contact you before doing so. Where payment has been taken, we will refund it in full. This does not affect an order we have already accepted and dispatched at a correct price.
12. Changes to these terms and the programme
Membership is subject to the rules of the buying group, including these terms, our privacy policy and our operating policies. We may amend those rules at any time, without notice, and the version published on this page applies from the time it is published.
This includes the pricing scale, the spend at which the deepest price is reached, the benefits of membership, and the availability of Partner Specials. Any change to the pricing scale applies from the next monthly review.
Two changes are always notified in advance: an increase in the membership fee, and a change that materially reduces the benefits of your membership. In both cases we give 30 days written notice to the email address on your account, and you may cancel before the change takes effect.
We may end the buying group with notice, in which case membership fees paid for any period after it ends are refunded.
13. Your rights, privacy and governing law
Our goods come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. Nothing in these terms limits those rights, and membership neither adds to nor reduces them. Manufacturer warranties apply in the ordinary way.
We handle personal and account information in line with our privacy policy, and we use your order history to calculate your pricing.
These terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia.