Shipping and Fulfilment

We aim to get all our orders out the door within one working day, not counting weekends and holidays. However, factors such as high order volume and courier pick-up times may cause delays. You will be informed via a shipping notification when we have booked the courier. You will also receive shipping notifications when your order has been picked up, is onboard for delivery and when it has been delivered.

We have set a goal for ourselves to get all orders out on the next available courier, which means sometimes our packing team may be able to book the courier within an hour of receiving your order. In such cases, it may be difficult to make changes to your order after it has been placed. Hence, it is important to review your basket throughout the checkout process as well as the order confirmation email to ensure that the details are accurate (double check your address, especially if you used express checkout).

Our couriers pick up at the same time everyday, so we can give you an idea when your order will leave the warehouse, depending on the freight company you choose during checkout:

Courier Company	Pick up time	Booking Cut off
Couriers Please	2:30 pm	12:00 pm
StarTrack (Australia Post)	2:00 pm	12:00 pm
Aramex	4:00 pm	2:00 pm

If you notice any errors, please let us know as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we can't offer shipping refunds if the courier has already been booked, as we incur charges at that point.

For all rural or regional deliveries, we recommend Australia Post and StarTrack. While StarTrack can be a little more expensive, the other couriers rely on third parties to do the final delivery which can create complications. If you do live outside metropolitan areas and other options for couriers show up (there are a lot of postcodes in Australia and we may have missed some), we recommend you select StarTrack or AusPost as your delivery choice they can use the post office network and have a wider coverage and seldom rely on third parties.

Due to some limitations with our freight booking software and our couriers, we have had to create some rules to remove certain options if an order is above a certain weight. This rule may preclude certain carriers. If you would like us to send your order via Australia Post, let us know and we can pack the order accordingly and book it manually. We have the software team with our booking software looking into this and we are hoping it can be remedied in the future. If we think that StarTrack will service your area better, we will switch the courier on your behalf.

Please note that only Australia Post can deliver to PO boxes and Parcel lockers.

Domestic Shipping Rates and Estimates

We have recently integrated all our couriers with our online shop, so you will be able to choose the best courier for your local area, with all deliveries having an "Authority to Leave". If you have somewhere in mind where you would like your parcel left, leave a note in the comments and we will put a note on your delivery for the delivery driver.

Shipping charges for your order will be calculated and displayed at checkout. You with Couriers Please there is two shipping options, 1) "One Box" 2) "Multiple boxes". If there is more than one box in your delivery (it is over 24kg or it is a drum or a bag of buckwheat hulls) please make sure you choose "multiple boxes" as we incur charges for the multiple box rate.

Due to the nature and varied sizes of our products and the size of the country, we can’t offer free shipping as a standard. But keep an eye out we may do special offers in the future.

When you enter your address into the system, try not to use any unnecessary words, like "unit", "shop" or "building", as this may prevent some of courier companies may not show up as an option (it is their software issue). For example, if you live at Unit 3 at 123 Sample St, Exampleville 0000. Just type 3/123 Sample St and Choose your address from the autofill options. This will ensure all the courier options are available to you.

Delivery times

Because we live in a big country delivery times can vary depending on the courier you choose and their volume at the time of your order. Especially, if you live in a regional area. To give you a rough idea about the times it can take to deliver your goodies, refer to the table below. The tracking on your order confirmation page will give you a better idea

Location

Rough transport time

Brisbane

1 - 2 Business days

Sunshine/Gold Coast

2 - 3 Business days (closer to 5 if it's regional)

North Queensland

5 - 14 days depending on if it needs to be delivered by a third party

Sydney

2 - 3 Business days

Regional NSW

5 - 14 days depending on if it needs to be delivered by a third party

Melbourne

2 - 3 Business Days

Regional Victoria

7 - 14 days depending on if it needs to be delivered by a third party

Tasmania

14 - 20 days - It will say Victoria through tracking as this is where it gets Transferred

Adelaide

3 - 7 days

Regional SA

10 - 21 days depending on if it needs to be delivered by a third party

Western Australia

10 - 21 days depending on if it needs to be delivered by a third party

In-store pickup

If you live in Brisbane, you can skip the shipping fees with free local pickup at our warehouse Tuesday to Friday or Northey St Organic Farmers’ Market on Sunday.

After placing your order and selecting pickup at checkout, you will be able to select a time to book a pick up slot on the order confirmation page after the checkout. The times available are:

Sovereign Foods Warehouse - 2/8 Lucy St, Moorooka 4105

Pick up day	Pick up time	Order Cut off time
Tuesday	1 - 4pm	Tuesday 8am
Wednesday	1 - 7pm	Wednesday 8am
Thursday	1 - 4pm	Thursday 8am
Friday	1 - 4pm	Friday 8am

Northey St Organic Farmers' Market - 19 Victoria St, Windsor 4030

Pick up day	Pick up time	Order Cut off time
Sunday	6am - 11am	Friday 8am

We will send you a notification on the day your order is ready to pick up.

Why is the cost of freight on my order so high?

We only use couriers to ship our products. This is mainly due to the variable weight of our products. Our website is tied directly to our courier companies software and we charge only what they charge us.

We don't add anything to the freight cost for consumables like boxes, tape, labels etc.
We don't add the cost of shipping into the product sell price so we can subsidise the freight.
We also don't add the cost of our contribution to carbon removal programs
We don't rely on subcontractors on a gig economy, like some large multinationals through potentially shady practices that rob them of holiday pay, sick pay or superannuation

You can read more about what factors are taken in when the courier companies quote you on your delivery here

While we would love to offer free shipping, it is hard to factor in all the shipping costs (while it is pretty cheap to ship to Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, it is quite expensive to send to the rest of the rural areas. So rather than increase all the prices of the products to cover shipping, we offer discounts if you go over $250 (10%) or $600 (15%), to subsidise the shipping costs. For those living in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, this will work out to better for you than free shipping, for those living rural, it will go a long way to subsidising the shipping costs.

How do I check the status of my order?

When your order has shipped, you will receive an email notification from us which will include a link to the order status page. On this page will be a tracking number you can use to check its status. Please allow 24 hours for the tracking information to become available.

What do I do if there is an issue with my order?

First thing, let us know straight away. Our first concern is to make sure you are happy with your order. If there are any issues, contact us straight away at contact.us@sovereignfoods.com.au or give us a call on the warehouse phone at: 0491176114.

If you can get some pictures to show us what is going on with your parcel, that is always super helpful. We will look into it as soon as we can and let you know what is happening at all points along our investigation.