28th Annual Meeting - Another Spectacular Year

Thanks to your patronage and our talented staff, the Wedge had another spectacular year.

We continued to provide phenomenal customer service and a broad selection of the finest natural and organic foods and other products to promote healthful living.

More consumers want the kinds of products the Wedge sells. Our strong financial position allowed us to demonstrate again our ability to anticipate and meet the growing demand. We reduced our long-term debt and still had money to invest in the Wedge's future. We expanded the store and built an in-house bakery for the popular artisan and sourdough breads. We completed the parking lot work and landscaping south of the store.

Soon, you will receive your portion of over $250,000 in cash patronage refunds. The substantial refund to members highlights the co-op difference. We return our profits to you, our local owners. You receive profits based on the money you spent at the co-op over the past year, not on the cost of your membership investment. We keep our profits in our community of members.

Wedgeshare, begun in 1998, demonstrates another way your purchases build community. We distribute a portion of post-patronage-refund profit as grants to non-profit organizations. The Wedge also contributes funds to the non-profit Midwest Food Connection to bring the natural and organic food message to school-age children.

As we grow, maintaining a sense of community becomes increasingly difficult and important. Making the Wedge more than a grocery store challenges and inspires staff and the board of directors. We seek creative approaches to maintain the Wedge's magic while improving service to our customers. Thank you for being a member of the Wedge, a unique, wonderful, diverse, dynamic organization that improves our lives and our community through cooperation.

-Candace F. Dow, President

(Editor's note: This is a reprint from the Annual Report.)

It is again my privilege to report to the membership that we had another outstanding year at the Wedge Co-op. Sales in fiscal year 2002 were $22,964,309, an 11.5% increase over fiscal 2001. We ended the year with 9,231 active members, an 11% increase over last year, with 68.6% of our retail sales to member-owners. The number of employees at the co-op increased to 238. Our sales per square foot of retail selling space continue to be one of the highest in the nation. The Wedge is the largest consumer-owned single store natural food co-op in the U.S.

Our financial position is very strong. This year we paid off all of our long-term debt, and now own our land and building free and clear. Our in-house bakery, completed a year ago, continues its robust growth. It produces 63 separate products each week, all hand made by our staff of outstanding bakers. In September 2002 the bakery sold 22,238 individual items! Bakery sales doubled over the course of the year and are now nearly $10,000 per week.

Over the last year we've been working on software which links the cash registers to our membership and accounting databases. This has been an ambitious project that has taken many hundreds of hours of work. Our IT department has written over 10,000 lines of programming code. We completed installation of the system this summer. It speeds up checkout time at the cash register and gives us easily accessible membership information daily. This software is designed specifically for cooperatives, unlike any other cash register software on the market. One of the reasons this system is so great is that it was designed by people who understand how it is used.

Cashiers were consulted about special features - which would provide greater speed, flexibility and convenience at the point of sale. We are continuing to develop this software in order to make it available for other co-ops across the country.

Another exciting development this year has been our preparation for certification as an organic retailer. In early October, the Midwest Organic Services Association inspected our produce, meat and cheese departments, and the juice bar, bakery, and produce warehouse. It appears that we've passed with flying colors and we expect to get our official certification in November. Then we will pursue certification of our bulk and grocery departments, health and body care, and perhaps the deli.

Organic certification specifies protocols for the labeling and handling of all certified organic products. It requires that a detailed audit trail be established to track product back to the farm from which it originated. In many cases, we have the actual organic certificate from the certified grower. We'll be one of the first stores in the nation to receive this level of certification.

We continue our work with the cooperative community through our associations with Twin Cities Natural Food Co-ops and the Midwest Food Connection. TCNFC is the source of the CAP coupon book, CAP specials in the store every month and the Mix newsletter which you receive every other month. TCNFC continues to expand its services to the member co-ops. This year we formed a purchasing co-op, which includes 15 other co-ops in the Upper Midwest area, in order to leverage our buying power. We hope to reduce our costs by pooling resources to buy services (such as credit card processing and payroll service) and goods such as packaging supplies.

The Midwest Food Connection welcomed Linden Hills Co-op as a funding partner this year, so school children in that neighborhood will enjoy the program. MFC is a co-op-sponsored, non-profit educational outreach that sends an experienced teacher into K-5 classrooms to teach lessons about the history and uses of a variety of foods. The program is now sponsored by the Wedge, Lakewinds and Linden Hills co-ops. Last year the program reached 4,000 students in metro area school systems.

Our staff continues to meet the challenges of selling so much food in so little space. I believe we have the most dedicated, knowledgeable and talented team of people of any retail store in the country. Visitors from co-ops around the nation regularly compliment us on the talent of our staff and the professionalism of our organization. Our member-owners, staff and board of directors continue to make the Wedge an outstanding example of the cooperative principles at work. My thanks go to the members for their support and patronage, our staff for their dedication and hard work, and the board of directors for their confidence and leadership. The staff and I will continue to focus on providing you with outstanding goods and services in the coming year.

-Dan Foley, General Manager

The 28th Annual Meeting of the Wedge Membership took place as scheduled on Tuesday, October 29. Fewer than fifty individuals attended, representing thirty-two memberships. Directors and managers gave reports about the year that ended June 30, 2002, as well as updates about the fiscal year that started on July 1, 2002.

Two members who were attending the meeting for the first time expressed surprise about the low turnout, and I want to discuss that here and ask for feedback and ideas. Annual Meeting attendance has hovered around thirty-some memberships for years now. There was one year, 1994, when we sent a series of reminder postcards (members chastised us soundly for wasting paper and postage!) about the meeting. That resulted in a few more people, representing 58 memberships, attending - not a huge increase.

Several things come to mind about the situation. A meeting's quality is about more than the number of people who attend it. We recognize that not everyone wants to define their member-owner activity as coming to meetings. Meeting attendance at co-ops tends to be highest in the early years, when the members are still very directly involved in daily operations of the store. For most natural food co-ops, that era ended in the 80's. Member-owners patronize our store to the tune of over 69% of sales - an outstanding testament to the vitality of this co-op! We also know that you, as members, tell us what you want from the Wedge with hundreds of customer comments you write to us each month. These are vital membership functions because a co-op is primarily about meeting the needs of the membership.

Perhaps more pertinent and in need of member participation is achieving a quorum of ballots for a valid director's election. Our by-laws require that 10% of the active membership must vote in order to conduct a valid election. Members did just make the necessary number to qualify the October election, with about 14 ballots to spare. That is too close for comfort and gives rise to the question about how we can do this more effectively in the future. In the next year, we want to increase that level of support for the democratic process at the co-op.

I already have some ideas about things that could be changed, but would appreciate hearing from you on the subject. Please write or send email (elizabeth@wedge.coop) with your ideas. (I can't respond to everyone personally but we'll continue the dialogue via the newsletter.) Keeping our co-op strong in every way is in everyone's interest.

-Elizabeth Archerd, Member Services Director