Financial Report

by Elka Malkis

We had a busy 3rd quarter at the Co-op, with Sales of over $9.5 million dollars. Growth over last year was 6% at the Warehouse and 1% at the Store. Despite this, 1% doesn't really qualify as growth in my book, and sales at the Store have been pretty flat compared to the previous year since last summer. Have we finally really reached our ever-elusive "maximum" sales? Perhaps - but we did serve an average of 2,467 customers each day, which is just under 200 people each hour. Wow.

Our Gross Profit Margin (how much we have left after paying suppliers for the food we sell) was 34.4%. As all of you who read this column know, that means if we sell something to you for a dollar, we paid 65.6 cents to a vendor for that item, and we keep the remaining 34.4 cents to pay all our other expenses. Our labor related costs came to 22.3%; this includes wages, payroll taxes and all benefits. Building expenses were 2.5%, which includes real estate taxes, utilities, garbage and insurance. Operating expenses were 4.6%, and that includes repair and maintenance of equipment, all supplies both large and small, credit card fees and licenses. Admin, Governance, and Promotions expenses were 3.1%, including advertising, member discounts, the newsletter and office supplies.

We posted 3.1% in Other Income from Warehouse operations, service fees and interest bearing accounts.

We ended the quarter with $469,903 (4.9%) in profit, making this our most profitable quarter so far this fiscal year.