Despite the weather, the Beeland Co-op ended the year in a strong financial position
In fiscal year 2017, which goes from Feb. 1, 2016 to Jan. 31, 2017, the co-op earned $1.4 million in net savings, down from $1.7 million the year before.
“Everything is still clipping along fairly nice, said Todd Svenson, the co-op’s general manager, after his organization’s annual general meeting April 27. “You can see from the report that this year was a little bit softer than last year, which was a little softer than the year before, but that’s the economy right now.”
Sales were relatively steady, with $44 million worth of goods sold in fiscal year 2017 compared to $43.1 million the year before.
The general manager said the bad weather during harvest cost sales, with fewer bins and fuel sold from the agro department.
“It even affects the other commodities,” he said. “We’re a farm economy and if the farmers don’t have good crops and money, it affects the grocery store, it affects the home centre, all of Tisdale, I’m sure.”
The co-op also announced it will be going ahead with plans to plan a new food store, but it will be smaller than originally planned due to the arrival of a new Buy-Low Foods grocery store in Tisdale.
Of the co-op’s six locations, only the food store produced local savings for the co-op in fiscal year 2017. The co-op receives a patronage refund of $1.9 million back from Federated Co-operatives Ltd. from products it purchases that serve to top up the bottom line at each location.
The food store earned slightly more than $559,000 locally, compared to almost $738,000 the previous year.
The home centre saw a $116,000 local loss, compared to $73,000 in savings last year. That’s due to fewer sales and tighter margins. Svenson predicts it will do better in the next fiscal year.
“The home centre is budgeted to be in the black again. We’ve budgeted aggressively on sales and hopefully we’ll achieve them.”
The farm centre lost $117,000 locally, compared to making $98,000 previously. The centre moved from downtown to a location along Highway #3 during the last year.
“You’ve got increased costs to moving to the new site,” Svenson said. He said he’s hoping a good seeding and harvest season will boost those numbers.
The C-Store recorded an almost $315,000 local loss, compared to a $437,000 loss the previous year. Much of that is actually depreciation, which does not affect cash flow. Svenson said sales there are exceeding what the original feasibility study predicted.
The two rural food stores, Arborfield and Bjorkdale, also saw local losses. Arborfield lost almost $70,000, compared to a loss of just over $36,000 the previous year. Bjorkdale saw a loss of $205,000, compared to a loss of $230,000 the previous year. Bjorkdale, which has a four-year-old building, is also affected by depreciation.
Rural food stores are seeing a trend of losses across the co-op system, as people choose to travel further to get their groceries.
This year’s patronage allocation for members is almost $561,000, compared to $739,000 last year.
