FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER

Greetings,
Thank you to everyone who attended our Annual Meeting.  It was our highest attended Annual Meeting to date, not only board members and candidates,but owners like you who are interested in learning more about the co-op, were in attendance.

One of the first things I talked about at the meeting is the definition and purpose of an Annual Meeting. In our bylaws it states we must conduct an Annual Meeting and share financial information from our fiscal year end and that we must make this information available to owners upon request. If you're interested in our P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statements, please email me.

We also like to add in more detailed operational information. This year we focused on local. With "local" being a marketing buzz word, we felt it necessary to define and quantify what local means to us.

We define local as within 100 miles of the coop. Keep in mind the average grocery item travels 1,500 miles to get on our shelf! See the graphic below for details and a list of some of the small businesses we support by selling local products.

We were encouraged by these numbers and happy to share them with you. We work hard to get local products on the shelf. It is not always easy, as small, new cottage businesses aren't ready to go into full distribution with things like UPC codes and accounting invoices - even keeping up with production to ensure our shelves stocked can be a challenge. We provide helpful information to help them if they're just venturing into wholesale. We're proud to offer local products and it appears it is a priority for our owners and customers. We plan to grow these numbers for our next fiscal year.  Thank you for your support.

As always, please contact me directly if you have additional questions, suggestions, or ideas. regina@placervillecoop.org

Regina
General Manager