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 I know everyone is still being bombarded with messages about the state of the economy and it is affecting all of us one way or another. Here at the Co-op, we’ve seen evidence of that in our own store sales. For the first three months of 2009, sales have been just about flat — January was about 6% over the same month in 2008, February 4%, and March was 3% below.
Like all businesses, we appreciate your support, but keeping it local is now more important than ever. Recently, I’ve noticed several small local businesses closing their doors. It makes me sad, not just in the immediate sense of loss but the long-term affect: fewer choices and fewer options for where we shop, which will in turn make us less diverse, less textured and more homogenized. The economic change has forced many of us to reassess where we spend our dollars — we notice less people buying organic produce, for instance. However, each of us has an important role to play in the rebuilding of our economy; where we shop says much more about us than how we vote. By supporting our local and values-based businesses now, in hard times, we are in turn supporting our neighbors’ jobs, our local produce farms and even the places we love. Recently, I have heard more people say that they are choosing to shop local even if it does mean spending a little more money, and that, in turn, warms my heart. Simple actions like that mean we are working together to help build that new economy. Of course, the change in our sales has made us sit up and take a good look at what we are doing and what needs improving. Three and a half years after opening our meat department, we’ve decided it’s time to reorganize. The format we chose has not been working well for us, so we are closing our full-service case and will replace it with a self-service case. This will, in turn, reduce our staff by two, though luckily we were able to find jobs for both of them elsewhere in the store. Brennus and Kyle will keep on buying, cutting and wrapping meat for us, but you may not see them as often. Not all of us will like this change, but hopefully, the end result will be a more financially stable department that will still sell the clean meat we have grown to love and meet our BBQ needs! Elsewhere in the store, we are cutting unnecessary expenses, saying “no” to big projects and small donations, and trying to get by with less staff hours. We hope that you, the customers and members, will understand if things aren’t stocked quite as fast or if lines are a little bit longer. We will strive to keep offering excellent customer service and you can help us by being patient. And, finally, I have sadly determined that the timing is not quite right for introducing the long-awaited salad bar. Never fear, though, funds raised earlier this year during Salad Daze are still earmarked for its installation sometime in 2010. |
