Following profitable year, Co-op gives back over $200,000

The Coronach Co-op Association held its 93 annual meeting on March 19, 2012 at the Coronach Elks Hall. General Manager, Blair Molsberry, opened his manager’s report by saying, “2011 was a terrific year for the Coronach Co-op full of positives in all our locations.” Good news for members who saw no equity payment in 2010 after a poor year for the association. Molsberry reported an 8.7% increase or $155,097 in sales in the Food Store for total sales of over $1.9 million dollars. Molsberry reported Food store staff costs saw an increase of $22,000, largely in part to the increase of hours that were worked at Ager’s Variety after the Co-op took over. One Co-op expense that saw a sharp increase was the collection fees, that went up 47.5%.  Molsberry explained what collection fees are, “These are the fees associated with taking credit and debit cards.  Credit card companies continue to do a great job marketing their cards and convincing people to use their credit cards as much as possible.  “As more customers use their credit cards for all their purchases our collection costs will continue to rise each year.” Other Food Store expenses included the knife program, that ran from February until June.  “This program went very smoothly compared to the pots and pans program and cost us $8340 compared to $15,700 for the pot and pans.” Molsberry wrapped up the Food Store year, “Overall the Food Store lost $79,200.  This is 15% better than the loss of $92,700 in 2010.” He then moved on to the meat department, “Sales increased 5.1% to $364,859.  There was also a margin increase of just over $4000.  “The expenses in the meat department were very similar to 2010 with an increase of only $1300.  The meat department had had a negative bottom line of (51,592).  This is a $5700 improvement over 2010, but still has a long way to go before we can have a viable long-term department.” said Molsberry. The biggest improvement for the association, was seen in the Service Centre. “In the Service centre we had a great turnaround from 2010.  We did a clean-up of the entire inventory and have a much better Service Centre than we had. All inventory is up-to-date and we have a much better handle on the inventory dollars.  The total inventory in the Service centre has gone from $715,000 to $413,000 in two years.  This is a much more manageable figure for a location our size.” reported Molsberry. Adding to the success of the Service Centre was a member appreciation day that was held in the summer. “We had an excellent member appreciation day.  The garage sale, barbeque, rider visit and kid’s activities all went over tremendously.” said Molsberry. “At the end of the year total sales in the Service Centre were over $4.6 million dollars.  This was up from just over 4 million dollars in 2010. Sales were up for every commodity except for lumber.  These sales numbers show that the reduction in inventory has not hurt our sales at all. Margins were also significantly higher than in 2010.  We had just over $225,000 more margin dollars.  The Service Centre also had a great year for expenses.  Total expenses were only $800 more than 2010 for a total of $401,469.  These expenses account for only 8.7% of sales compared to 9.9% in 2010.  In the end the Service Centre had a positive bottom line of $76,466 compared to a loss of $167,400 in 2010.  This figure is more than double our highest local savings at the Service Centre in the past 5 years.” said Molsberry. Overall, total sales for the Coronach Co-op Association surpassed 6.9 million dollars.  “This is the second highest sales ever for the co-operative.  In 2012 we are budgeting for sales of over 7.3 million dollars.  This would be the most sales ever for the Coronach Co-op in one year.  The main reason for this increase in sales is due to the addition of Lotto and liquor sales from the purchase of Ager’s variety store from Joyce Ager.  The purchase of Ager’s has been a success for the Coronach Co-op.  There has been a very smooth transition of the lotto and liquor into our two stores.  The staff did a wonderful job learning these new products and continuing to give great service as Joyce did for the past 50 years.   Each year these two commodities will add over $30,000 of margin to our bottom line.  That money will be a huge benefit to the Co-op in the years to come.” reported Molsberry. Molsberry summarized the reports by saying, “What does this all mean for our bottom line?  We had a local loss of $54,329 in 2011.  This was more $263,000  better than 2010.  Our patronage refund from FCL was $431,934.  This led to net savings of $377,604 in 2011 or 377,191 more than 2010.  Thanks to this terrific year the Coronach Co-op will be able to give back to our loyal customers $229,745, with $124,848.64 of this in the form of cash.  This is 6% on fuel and oil, and 2% back on grocery, agro, lumber, hardware and confectionery.” Molsberry closed his address by saying, “In closing I would like to thank all of you, our members for the support you show your local co-op.  Without you we would not be able to do any of this.” Long-term service awards were presented to the following employees: Anna New - 10 years, Doug Swayn - 10 years, Pauline Scott - 5 years, Marc Beauregard - 5 years and Kim Boerma - 5 years. The Co-op will host a member appreciation BBQ and hand out cheques to their customers on Wednesday May 16. trianglenews@sasktel.net