Delivery Information
Postage and packing
UK orders under the £29.99 limit is £4.50 (£3.75 +VAT), there are exclusions to this particularly Islands and Northern Ireland
UK orders above £29.99 postage and packing is FREE, there are exclusions to this particularly Northern Ireland and the Islands. We no longer send to the Channel Islands.
We no longer ship to Jersey as we were going to be caught by a new tax which would would have meant additional admin including registering and returns for this tax which is too burdensome for the small admin team that we have - so sorry.
The other exception for UK orders are priority orders where postage and packing is £14.50 regardless of the amount of the order. This is then delivered next working day (excluding weekends) by DPD, the exception to this are the highlands and islands and Northern Ireland, which will go via Evri and will then by a 3 day service, Monday - Saturday). Priority orders was paused from April 2020, if you need something to get there by a certain date or urgently please email or call us - we will do our best to help.
Businesses in Northern Ireland should NOT order via the website as the correct paperwork will not be with the order and may cause issues with delivery.
Availability guide
We endeavour to hold sufficient stock of all our lines to fulfil our expected medium-term order book. However, some of our organic specialist blends and more unusual organic spices and herbs may not be held as packed stock; therefore, these may need to be packed specially for your order. This guarantees a high quality and fresh product, but may require a few days for our production team to blend and pack your goods.
We aim for orders to be blended, packed, picked and prepared for dispatch within 5 working days, but it may take up to 21 working days - Steenbergs does not work on Saturdays or Sundays or Public Holidays. When we run short of an item because of the harvests & seasons or supplier stock issues or you are placing a large order, we will inform you by e-mail if any items in your order turn out to be unavailable. We will provide you with the estimated time it will take us to receive the out of stock item from the supplier, blend it, pack it and prepare it for dispatch. If we expect to be out of stock for 2 weeks or more, we will give you the option of cancelling your order or backorder, refunding any payments promptly or crediting your next order. In addition, Steenbergs is currently incorporating a 2 day additional delay on orders to mitigate current higher levels of attempted fraudulent activity.
How will it be delivered?
Small parcels (items under 2 kilos) destined for a UK address will normally be dispatched by the most cost-efficient method using the Royal Mail - Tracked 24 hours.
Parcels heavier than 2 kilos will go via DPD, unless its highlands, Islands and Northern Ireland in which case it will by Evri.
Please note these delivery times are in addition to the picking time and we aim to have goods to you within 7 working days of ordering, incorporating the 2 day anti-fraud delay.
It is recommended that delivery instructions be given if you are unlikely to be able to take delivery yourself. In particular, for deliveries during the week you should consider whether an order can be sent to your work address or whether there is somewhere secure for the delivery to be left (you are responsible for the security of any delivery instructions provided). Should you require a change of delivery address after the parcel has been dispatched, this will incur an additional charge which must be borne by you. Mobile numbers are asked for to enable you to take charge of your order - DPD in particular give you an hour slot, if you choose not to give us a mobile number then you will lose some of the ability to change deliveries etc. DPD app is the best for taking charge of the DPD deliveries and you are now able to even use What 3 words to help ensure your parcel is correctly delivered. We do not call mobile numbers unless requested to do so.
We are no longer able to send outside of the UK, post - Brexit.
How long will it take to arrive?
To find out when you will receive an item within the UK, you need to consider the availability of the item you ordered and add it to our standard dispatch time. If an item is available as packed stock, it will normally take 48 hours for those items to be picked and prepared for dispatch. Standard delivery will be next day from dispatch, so allow 3-4 days form ordering.
We use external carriers for deliveries but (while we accept that their service can impact your impression of our service) we cannot always influence the way they work, although our customer services team will always help and liaise if an issue has arisen, luckily a rare occurrence.
From early November to Christmas Day orders may take 10 working days from your order until it has been prepared for dispatch (ie it could take 15 days or more to reach its UK destination from placing an order), unless the priority supplement has been selected. The last day for Christmas orders in the UK is 14 December (or nearest Friday if 14 December falls on a weekend) in any year. No priority orders will be taken after this cut-off date.
If there are specific events or timing by which products are required, please email or phone us or use the special instructions box and we will do our best to help - to ensure that we meet these timing requirements you should select priority supplement which is there for quick picking and packing. If you need these specific timing requirements to be met, we will charge the timed delivery costs to you in full, including (but not limited to) Saturday courier charges.
If you have selected Priority Delivery (currently not available), you should order via the Internet, email us or fax or phone us before 12 noon Monday to Thursday and we can dispatch your parcel for next-day delivery. Orders placed after 12 noon on Thursday will be delivered the following Monday. Please do not embarrass us by asking on Friday for a Next Day/ Saturday delivery as our experience is that (even with the best will in the world) both your - and our - expectations are rarely met since the only delivery option is First Class Post unless you opt for a timed delivery (as above). No new Priority Orders will be taken after the Christmas cut-off date of 14 December until 2 January in the following year.
NB: Delivery times to BFPO addresses are dependent on British Forces Post Office schedules.
NBB: All the above delivery times relate to deliveries in the UK (excluding Highlands and Islands, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands). For these excluded destinations please add at least one extra day.
How much will it cost?
Our standard UK delivery service is free for orders over £29.99. Below £29.99, there is a £4.50 handling charge for UK deliveries, which includes VAT at 20%. Islands and Northern Ireland have different shipping costs.
The Handling Charge covers the costs of picking, packing and other processing costs for small orders (including credit checks and fraudulent activity) where these costs are not covered by the value of the order.
You should allow 7 working days for the standard delivery service. We offer a Next Day delivery service for an additional fee of £10.00 (inclusive of VAT), i.e. you will still pay the additional charge for Next Day service even when your order is over £29.99. Your order should be with you by 5.00 p.m. on the next day.
Export / import information
At present, we do not export our products outside of the UK. Please do not embarrass us by completing an order for dispatch to the EU or the USA as we will have to refund your money and explain that we cannot fulfil your order - there is no delivery option for the EU nor USA for this reason and it is not an oversight.
When ordering goods from Steenbergs for delivery overseas, you may be subject to import duties and taxes which are levied once the package reaches your country. Generally, customs forms for international packages will list the value of the contents of your order by product type.
Any additional charges for customs clearance must be borne by you; we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they may be. Customs policies vary widely from country to country, so you should contact your local customs office for further information.
Additionally, please note that when ordering from Steenbergs, you are considered the importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the country in which you are receiving the goods. In particular, certain countries may require additional procedures and certification with regard to organic status prior to import. At present, Steenbergs is certified under EC 834/2007 and EC889/2008 by the Organic Food Federation (registered in UK as GB-ORG-04 and in EU as GB-BIO-192) for processing and sales of organic products in the UK and the European Union under equivalence rules; we are not currently compliant for the United States, Japan, Australia or any other country that does not recognise EC organic certification rules. Since Brexit this is more complicated and mostly impossible to export to the EU due to the country of origin certificate required and organic importer certificate at the other end this is the organic addendum to the Brexit agreement.
Your privacy is, also, very important to us and we know that you care about how information about your order is used and shared. We would like our international customers and customers dispatching products internationally to be aware that cross-border deliveries are subject to opening and inspection by customs authorities. We may provide certain order, delivery and product information to our international carriers and such information may be communicated by the carriers to customs authorities in order to facilitate customs clearance and comply with local laws. If the order is a gift or a sample, the package is marked "Gift" or "Sample" but the cost of the item is still stated on the customs form. Customs authorities require us to state the value of the gift or sample item directly on the package.
Sending to a "forwarding" house
As stated above Steenbergs currently doesn't export due to the laws and regulations for doing so. Whilst we will send to a forwarding house all responsibilities any potential export are on the customer and not Steenbergs. We do not recommend using a forwarding house and it is all at the customer's risk. We will deliver there but any pick ups from failed export are on the customer to organise.
