TISDALE — A tough economy last year had an effect on the Beeland Co-op’s savings, but its largest project in 40 years will put it in a good position in the future.
Todd Svenson, the co-op’s general manager, said construction on the new 34,271 square foot food store is slightly behind schedule.
“The contractor is looking at ways to catch up some time lost from some of that cold weather we had this winter,” he said, adding construction is close to being back on track. “We are supposed to get the building around the middle of September and from that it will take us four to five weeks to do merchandising, get everything set up, so look forward to an end of October, early November opening.”
The new store will also feature more than 130 parking spaces, compared to 55 at the current site and a full-serve popcorn counter only seen in Saskatoon and the new co-op food store in Flin Flon.
There will also be a pharmacy, something that Svenson said is an important piece for the co-op.
“There was five of them in the early 2000s when we exited the market and we definitely feel there’s a market there for us without worrying the other two,” he said. “I definitely think there’s room for three pharmacies in town and I think we can all be successful.”
The manager said he’s hopeful the pharmacy will drive traffic to the new store.
There will also be a renovation at the Arborfield store to add a Canada Post outlet. Svenson said that while that will bring a little revenue and traffic to the site, the main reason was to make sure Arborfield has a post office, as Canada Post wanted it to go to an existing business.
“Rather than see that service go to the outside metal mailboxes and picking up parcels in another town, we thought we had to do our part to keep it in the community.”
For the last fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, 2018, the bottom line was $1.2 million, compared to $1.4 million the year before. Margins decreased from 16.1 per cent to 14.9 per cent.
Svenson said those numbers are due to a soft economy. He said the co-op is in a strong fiscal position.
“We’ve had a few years of shrinking bottom lines, but it is still, overall, a very good position.”
The patronage allocation to members has gone from $561,000 two years ago to $609,000. Svenson said the co-op has taken action in previous years to direct more money to help pay for all of the new construction and this year’s amount is similar to last year’s.
“It’s a balancing act. You’re trying to reward our members for their patronage yet saving and building for the future.”
The store in Arborfield is close to a break-even point, with almost $44,000 in losses, but the store in Bjorkdale is in a more difficult position, seeing $218,000 in losses.
“It’s a fight for sales and for margins, Svenson said. “We’re looking at everything we can figure out to try to gain sales and try to gain margin.”
Small retail outlets like Arborfield and Bjorkdale have seen problems all across the co-operative system as more people are willing to shop in larger centres.
