We’ve just ended 2018 on a tremendous high note, and we wanted to share the good news.
- We experienced sales growth of 13.6%, bringing in $4.32 million in 2018. Our projection for the year had been just 6%. Thanks to our community, we’ve grown by leaps and bounds when the grocery business in general is contracting.
- We now have more than 3900 Owners who’ve invested in the store, more than double the number we had when we opened in March 2013. Co-op Owners are friends and neighbors in the community who believe in our mission and want to support the cooperative business model.
- Our Lend a Hand register round-up donations to local nonprofits grew by 38% last year to $31,027.81. Our shoppers and Owners have contributed more than $89,000 to community organizations since the program’s start in October 2013. (Almost all of these donations are less than a dollar each, so that’s 8.9 million pennies!)
- We now serve more than 325 customers every day – and many of them live and work downtown.
We also had a fabulous holiday season.
We won three categories of a Thanksgiving challenge sponsored by National Cooperative Grocers. (NCG is our cooperative of 146 retail food co-ops with more than 200 stores in 37 states and more than $2 billion in sales.)
We placed:
- 1st in highest percentage sales growth the day before Thanksgiving (30.9%)
- 1st among stores our size in the number of turkeys sold in November (740)
- 2nd in the highest growth of bone-in turkey breasts sold in November (+40)
Happy New Year, and thank you!
THIS is AWESOME news! It goes to show how much our Co-Op was needed in Fairbanks! Great job, everyone!