Financial Report

Even though this is the August Newsletter, our deadlines required that I write this article in June. Which means that I don't have any year-end numbers to report yet; I only have information through the end of March. I am, therefore, happy to report that our year-to-date Sales from July 1, 2002 through March 31, 2003, were $18,712,904. At this rate we should be knocking fairly loudly at the $25 million dollar door by June 30, 2003.

Our Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) year-to-date is 63%, and our Gross Margin is 37%.

We had a slightly lower Gross Margin in the 3rd quarter (36.3%) than earlier in the year, but 37% YTD is a healthy Gross Margin. This means that out of every dollar in sales, we have 37 cents left over after paying for the food we sell.

So far this fiscal year, we have spent $4,625,500 on payroll and related costs (taxes, benefits), or 24.7% of sales. This is our largest expense, after Cost of Goods.

Additionally, we have spent:

• $470,800 in Building expenses - insurance, real estate tax, utilities, trash, repairs, depreciation
• $805,400 in Operating expenses - phones, supplies, bank fees, vehicles, cleaning & other services
• $121,000 in Administrative expenses - CPA and legal services, office supplies, dues, conferences
• $318,500 in Governance expenses - BOD, WedgeShare, annual meeting, and member discounts
• $124,500 in Promotions expense - newsletter, advertising, donations, classroom

All of the above comes to 9.9% of sales, leaving us with 2.4% profit (or just over 2 cents per dollar in sales) before "other" expenses and income.

Year-to-date, we have no "other" expenses save a mere $627.00 in interest on a loan that is now paid in full. We have earned $98,000 in "other income;" rental income, service fees, class fees, and interest earned on savings. We show $379,000 in margin earned from the warehouse. We have paid $63,000 in estimated tax payments. We have received quite a lot of money from the liquidation of Blooming Prairie Natural Foods, the cooperative wholesaler. Some of this was the return of our equity (retained portions from patronage refunds that BP issued). Some of it was the patronage refund for their fiscal year 2002. All in all, we have posted $126,000 in "other" income from this source through March 31, 2003.

Our Net Income After Tax for the first 9 months of the year is $1,006,000, or 5.4% of sales.