The rules, in plain language

Section 01

What these terms cover

These terms apply when you use demesmeats.ca, create an account, place an order or take part in the Customer's Club. DEMES Meat Products operates the site from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

By placing an order you accept these terms. If something here does not work for you, email sales@demesmeats.ca before you order rather than after.

Wholesale supply runs on separate agreed terms. Nothing on this page overrides a signed wholesale arrangement. Start a conversation through the wholesale page.

Section 02

Our products

DEMES makes Halal certified deli meats and sausages from scratch at a licensed commercial facility in Toronto certified by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Retail packs are sold in 250 g and 1 kg sizes.

We describe our products as accurately as we can, but photographs are illustrative. Slicing, colour and exact pack weight vary a little between batches because these are made rather than stamped out.

• Products are never frozen. They are held on a 0 to 4 degree cold chain from sealing to delivery.
• Unopened, products keep up to 60 days refrigerated. Always follow the best-before date printed on the pack, which takes precedence over anything on this website.
• Once opened, keep refrigerated at 0 to 4 degrees and eat within 5 days.

Section 03

Accounts

You can order as a guest, or create an account to save addresses, follow your orders and collect club points. You can register with an email and password, or with Google.

• Give accurate details. We deliver food to the address you enter.
• Keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for activity under your account.
• Tell us promptly if you think someone else has access to it.
• One account per person. Accounts are not transferable.

We may suspend or close an account that is being used fraudulently, to abuse the club points system, or in a way that harms other customers or our staff. If we do, we will tell you why.

Section 04

Placing an order

Adding items to your cart does not reserve them. A contract forms when we confirm your order by email after payment succeeds.

We may decline or cancel an order, and refund it in full, if an item turns out to be unavailable, if we cannot deliver to your address, if a price or product description was clearly wrong, or if we suspect fraud. Availability is limited by what we have made, and fresh production sells out.

Orders are subject to a minimum value. The minimum, the delivery fee and the value above which delivery is free are all shown at checkout before you pay. Those figures can change, so the ones displayed at checkout are the ones that apply to your order.

Section 05

Prices, tax and payment

Prices are in Canadian dollars. Ontario HST is calculated and shown separately at checkout, along with any delivery fee and any discount from club points, before you confirm payment.

Payment is processed by Helcim, a Canadian payment processor. Your card details go directly to Helcim and never reach our servers. We receive a transaction reference and confirmation of whether the payment succeeded.

• Payment is taken in full at checkout. We do not ship on account for retail orders.
• Your order is confirmed only once payment has been authorised.
• If a price is listed incorrectly, we will contact you before charging you and you can confirm at the corrected price or cancel for a full refund.

Section 06

Delivery and pickup

We deliver across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area on a refrigerated cold chain. The postal codes we currently serve are checked at checkout, and the site will tell you if we cannot reach you before you pay. You can also collect your order from our Toronto facility.

• Someone needs to be able to receive the order. This is chilled food, and it should not sit outside in the sun or the cold.
• Add delivery notes at checkout if the address needs them, for example a buzzer code or a side entrance.
• If a delivery fails because nobody was there or the address was wrong, we may charge again for a second attempt, and we cannot guarantee food left unattended.
• For pickup, bring your order number. Pickup instructions and times are shown at checkout and in your confirmation email.

We give estimated timing, not guaranteed timing. Weather, traffic and production reality all interfere, and we would rather deliver your order properly chilled than exactly on the hour.

Section 07

Cancellations, refunds and problems

Food safety rules mean we cannot resell perishable food once it has left our control, so chilled products are not returnable simply because you changed your mind. That does not take away your rights when something is actually wrong with an order.

Changed your mind

Contact us as soon as possible. If your order has not been prepared for dispatch yet, we will cancel it and refund you in full. Once it is on its way we cannot take chilled food back.

Wrong or missing item

Tell us within 24 hours of delivery or pickup and we will send the correct item or refund that item, whichever you prefer.

Quality problem

If a product arrives damaged, warm, leaking or otherwise not right, contact us within 24 hours with your order number and a photograph. We will refund or replace it. Please keep the product until we have responded.

Order never arrived

Tell us and we will investigate with our driver. If it was not delivered, you get a replacement or a full refund.

Refunds go back to the card used for the order. How quickly it appears depends on your bank, not on us.

Section 08

The Customer's Club

The Customer's Club is a free loyalty programme for account holders. It works like this:

• You earn points on what you spend, awarded when an order is paid for.
• Points can be redeemed for a discount on a future order, applied at checkout.
• You earn bonus points for leaving a review on a product you bought.
• You get a bonus on your birthday, if you have added your birthday to your account.
• You get a bonus on cultural occasions we celebrate, currently Nowruz and Yalda Night.
• Members move into higher tiers as they earn, and the tiers and their thresholds are shown on your club page.

The current earn rate, redemption rate, bonus amounts and tier thresholds are shown in your Customer's Club page. We may adjust them, and if we do, the rates shown there are the ones that apply.

• Points have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for money or transferred to anyone else.
• Points earned on an order that is later refunded are reversed.
• Points are removed if the account is closed.
• We may withhold or reverse points obtained by abusing the programme, for example through duplicate accounts or reviews for products that were never bought.

Section 09

Reviews and anything you post

Reviews are moderated before they appear, and we publish them whether they are complimentary or not. What we will not publish is anything false, abusive, discriminatory, off-topic, or written to promote something else.

By submitting a review you confirm it reflects your genuine experience, and you give us permission to display it on the site alongside the product and your first name. You can ask us to remove your review at any time.

Section 10

Using the site sensibly

Please do not:

• Try to break into accounts, systems or the admin area.
• Scrape the site, or hammer it with automated requests.
• Copy our photography, product descriptions or branding for your own use.
• Place orders fraudulently, or with someone else's payment card.

The DEMES name, logo, photography, product descriptions and site design belong to us. Using them commercially without written permission is not allowed.

Section 11

Our responsibility, and its limits

We take food safety seriously. Our facility is CFIA certified, we run a HACCP-based food safety plan, and we maintain full batch traceability. Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited, and nothing here affects the rights you have under Ontario's consumer protection legislation.

Beyond that, our liability for any order is limited to the amount you paid for it. We are not responsible for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost profits or the cost of a cancelled event, arising from a late or failed delivery.

You are responsible for storing products correctly once they reach you, and for reading the label if you have an allergy.

Section 12

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Disputes go to the courts of Ontario.

Section 13

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the business changes. The date at the top shows when we last did. The terms in force when you place an order are the ones that apply to that order, so changing this page does not alter an order you have already made.

Your privacy is covered separately in our privacy policy.