Legal Resources & Onboarding
Welcome to the Legal Terms page for Cox Farms. We are committed to building strong, transparent, and mutually beneficial relationships with our suppliers. This page provides information and documents to help you as you begin or continue your partnership with us.
Why Partner With Us?
- Structured & Scalable Onboarding
- Commitment to Ethics & Sustainability
- Grow With Us
OUR APPROACH TO SUPPLIER PARTNERSHIPS
WHAT WE LOOK FOR:
QUALITY & FOOD SAFETY: Partners must meet or exceed all regulatory and customer requirements for food safety, traceability, and quality assurance.
SUSTAINABILITY: We prioritize partners who share our commitment to sustainable agriculture, resource efficiency, and reducing environmental impact.
INNOVATION: We value partners who bring new ideas, technologies and products to help us better serve our customers.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION: We encourage diverse and minority-owned businesses to apply, in line with our commitment to an inclusive supply chain.
HOW WE WORK:
TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION: We believe in open, honest, and timely communication at every stage of the relationship.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: We work collaboratively with partners to identify opportunities for improvement.
COMPLIANCE & AUDITS: Regular reviews and audits ensure ongoing compliance with our standards and those of our retail customers.
CLEAN CONTRACTING Our terms are intentionally relational and aligned to the operational realities.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
To establish terms of partnership that are sustainable for us and our partners.
CONTRACTING PRINCIPLES:
ACCURATE & OPERATIONALLY REASONABLE TERMS: Contract terms must accurately describe the transaction and overall business relationship as understood by the parties and be based on operational realities.
LIMITED USE OF DIMINISHING TERMS: Diminishing Terms are terms which adversely affect a party by unreasonably reducing the value or increasing the costs of what is being provided.
ACCOUNTABILITY: In the event a party fails to perform, the contract must ensure the other party of their intended benefit at no or minimal additional cost.
REWARDS: Where possible, the contract should incentivize conduct that is above and beyond contractual obligations and has a material positive impact.
KEY BUSINESS TERMS:
FOOD SAFETY: Core to our mission is ensuring our partners are aligned on the safety of our food.
DURATION / TIME: The length of the engagement must be clear. We do not accept autorenewal.
PAYMENT TERMS: We require Net 45 days from invoice receipt, and no extreme penalties terms.
TERMINATION RIGHTS: If things don’t work out, we reserve the right to terminate. We don’t grant mutual termination rights because replacement of a service is different from replacement of a revenue stream.
DELIVERY TERMS: The party responsible for shipping and the shipping destination need to be clearly specified.
PRICES & PRICING STRUCTURE: Transparency and simplicity in pricing and pricing structure is required.
REFUNDS / REPAIRS & RETURNS: This is a must-have when the product/service supplied doesn’t comply with the contract terms.
PURCHASING COMMITMENTS: The product or service being purchased must be accurately and fully described.
KEY LEGAL TERMS:
SAFETY: Both in practice and in words, we require you to comply with best practices that impact our people, our food and the underlying technology networks.
INDEMNIFICATION: As a starting point, each party is responsible for its violations of law, infringement of another party’s intellectual property, and breach of another party’s confidentiality. In such cases, the other party should be free of all resulting exposure.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: As a general matter IP rights should never hamper Mucci’s reasonable operational needs.
LIMITS OF LIABILITY: Each party is entitled to a reasonable cap on its exposure to damages to the extent those damages are not driven by third party damages beyond its control or are of the type where a cap isn’t easily determined.
POLICIES & CONTRACTS
SALES BROKERAGE AGREEMENT - This is where we have hired on a party who brokers deals between Cox and the Retail Grocer.
EXCLUSIVE GROWER AGREEMENT - This is used where we are purchasing produce from a third party seller of produce.
SEED TRIAL AGREEMENT - This is used where we are engaging with a seed producer in a trial that is expected to yield valuable information about their seed in our operating environment.
MARKETING SERVICES - This is a party we've engaged to support marketing and advertising activities.
STANDARD MASTER MATERIALS AGREEMENT - This is used for a variety of low-tech products such as uniforms, and other reusable tangible products.
NDA - This is used when we are starting to explore a new vendor relationship and will be exchanging proprietary or sensitive information prior to entering into a full contract.
OVERRIDING ADDENDUM - This is used where we are working on vendor paper for a product or service but ant to ensure our terms apply. It often involves maintenance work with some product/software/service aspects.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT - This is used for a variety of consulting activities that can range from food formulas, greenhouse ag systems to accounting services.
PURCHASE ORDER - This is used for small dollar products, services, and equipment. Think less than 100k and items like recurring HVAC system maintenance.
SaaS AGREEMENT - This is used where Cox Farms is purchasing SaaS software.
DIRECT HIRE STANDARD - This is used where Cox Farms is hiring talent.
STANDARD STAFFING AGREEMENT - This is used where Cox Farms is hiring temporary workforce.