Perishable Items

We are a Vermont based perishable shipper (we produce it here and we ship it to you from here). Most orders include at least one perishable item (cheese, bacon, or chocolate). Our packaging materials are designed to keep these items in satisfactory condition during shipping. Your package should typically arrive at its destination two to three days after leaving Shelburne Farms, but occasionally one day for local region or four days for Alaska and Hawaii or situations beyond our control like storms or peak season congestion carrier delays. The shipping price offered at checkout, based on your ship-to state and calculated weight, will provide for a shipping method that meets these transit times.

Packing Materials

We pack your order simply, but with great care to ensure that it will arrive at its destination in excellent condition. Our packing materials include recycled cardboard boxes, corn-based compostable foam insulated cardboard boxes, reusable ice packs, and crinkled brown paper.

Product Temperature - Ice Packs and Insulated boxes

Cheddar is a pretty remarkable and resilient cheese. Shipping Cheddar and dry cured meats (salamis) in ambient temperatures up to 85⁰F for limited periods of time is food safe and does not impact quality. Even above 85⁰F is food safe. If it will be very hot at the destination we will put ice packs in with the cheese, and may also use insulated boxes. When you open the package the contents and the ice pack(s) may have warmed up to room temperature, but that is okay. It has been kept cool for much of the journey. Refrigerate it when it arrives. Bacon and chocolate are more sensitive to heat, so we will use more ice packs with these items, but again, if they have warmed up when you receive them they should still be ok since they were kept cool for most of the transit time.

Shipping Schedule

We have only one shipping option that can be chosen for any destination. We no longer have extra cost expedited options nor lower cost longer transit time options. We ship as close as we can to the ship date you request, or if no ship date is requested, we ship as soon as we can while still achieving a short transit time. NOTE: If you have special delivery timing needs or constraints, including desired arrival date, please write them in the 'comments or special instructions' field on the Shipping Information page when you place your online order, or call us at 802-985-0333. With enough lead time we will do our best to satisfy these requests while maintaining reasonable transit times.

Packages generally spend 1 to 3 days in transit, depending on the shipping method and the distance they will travel. The day we ship your package is not included in transit days, transit days begin the day after it is shipped. For example, if we ship a package on Monday to a destination three days in transit; Tuesday is one, Wednesday is two, and the package will arrive on Thursday, the third day.

For warm weather destinations we try to avoid shipping on days that will result in transit over a weekend and make for longer than the preferred calendar days in transit.

Delays may occur due to item availability or high shipping volume (primarily during the December holiday season). If you have any questions about shipping, please call us at (802) 985-0333 or email us at [email protected].

Shipping Methods and Prices

We ship your order by FedEx or USPS Parcel Post to addresses within the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. Your credit card will typically be billed for the order when your order is shipped, however an approximate $1 hold to confirm the card will occur at order time. This will then later be released. The charges for shipping will be as shown in the table below and will be presented to you at check-out. At time of shipment, we will choose the method optimized for destination temperature, transit times, weather delays, package weight/volume and cost. If you are shipping to a Post Office Box, we can only ship by USPS, and we will, but note that at peak holiday times the normal 2-3 day transit times may be exceeded.

Weight and Volume Based Pricing

Our Shipping Prices, on average, are set to cover our carrier and box costs, with no margins or fees added. These costs are based on a combination of shipment weight and volume but dominated by volume. We have assigned a weight to every item we ship, which is generally the actual weight of the item, as is the case for cheese, but some items that require extra packaging around them or ice packs, for example chocolate or bacon, are given a little extra weight in our calculation to account for their extra volume. The total calculated weight of the package (which includes the volume factor) will be used to determine the shipping price, in four possible categories up to 9 lbs, 9-19 lbs, 19-20 lbs and more than 29 lbs. Some shipping regions are less affected by the weight/volume variations, so may have fewer price categories (see table below). For all Regions, any single order with a calculated weight greater than 29 lbs will require calling us at 802-985-0333 for the shipping price since it will need to be shipped in two or more boxes. Note that typically hot places, which will often ship in insulated boxes (that hold much less) will have higher shipping prices.

International Shipping

We can no longer ship to international locations other than Canada. We can ship most items to Canada (with the exception of meat products and bread). If you would like to place an order to be shipped to Canada please call us at (802) 985-0333 so that we can give you pricing information and ensure that your order is fulfilled with special care.

Shipping Prices