Celebrating 40 Years
By Pat Burns, General Manager
At this year’s Member meeting we will be celebrating our 40th Birthday. It will be a time to reflect on the commitment and work that has gone into making City Market what it is today. I’ll also be reviewing the past year at City Market, talking about what we’ve done and how we did it. I can tell you that with the support of our Members and the incredible work done by all of the staff, we had a terrific year in 2013. Some of the highlights follow:
Our sales for fiscal year 2013 (FY 2103) were $36 million, a 9.0% increase over the previous year. Our Membership grew to 9,161 Members and these Members accounted for 61.6% of our sales.
For the fifth straight year, we will be distributing a Patronage Refund with checks going out in November. At our August meeting, the Board of Directors approved a Patronage Refund distribution of over $873,000. With this year's Refund, the Co-op will have sent just over $2.8 million back to our Members.
Providing access to local food is another major point of differentiation between the Co-op and our competition. This past year 34% of our sales (+$12 million) were local products, Our buyers continue to meet with the farmers we buy from to discuss purchases, new products and any new initiatives they might be looking to undertake.
Over the past two years, we have expanded the focus of our Member Worker program to be more impactful to our 15 non-profit community partners. I'm happy to report that last year almost 50% of all volunteer Member Worker hours were attributed to these partner non-profits. This to me is a great example of how City Market can provide even more support to our community.
The presentation I’ll be making at the Member meeting covers July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013. Until the end of March 2013, Clem Nilan was the General Manager of City Market. Much of the success of City Market this past year should be attributed to Clem’s leadership. Since assuming the role of General Manager this past April, I have benefited tremendously from all of his efforts, the efforts of our Leadership Team and the efforts of all of the employees who work daily to make sure that City Market serves the needs of our Members and our community. I thank you for the opportunity to participate in such a great process.
Hot off the press and not part of last year’s report: We have completed the Prepared Foods reset and it looks great. New equipment and a more efficient layout have given us much needed elbow room around the Hot Bar, Grab & Go and the Coffee station. Check it out.
Thanks for your patronage,
Pat