Newsletters: July - August 2007
Patronage Rebates
Dear Coop Owners and Patrons:
New Leaf Market Board of Directors approved a 20 percent patronage rebate for fiscal year 2006-07. The patronage rebate is calculated on the annual amount of profit made from sales to New Leaf Market owners. For example, during the past fiscal year, approximately 55 percent of our sales were to co-op owners and as such, approximately 55 percent of our profits were made from owners.
Staff is currently working with our accountant to determine last year's profit totals. These findings will be reported at our annual owners' meeting. Twenty percent of this amount will be distributed to owners in proportion to the amount of sales made from each owner.
When New Leaf Market reincorporated as a coop under Minnesota law, we were able to offer patronage rebates in lieu of cash register discounts. This allowed the coop to wait until the end of the year to share a portion of its profits with owners, rather than providing discounts for owners throughout the year, before we knew if the store even had profits.
Minnesota law requires coops to rebate a minimum of 20 percent of profits to owners. Since reincorporating, the board approved rebates above this 20 percent minimum. This year, however, the board wanted to finance as much of our store expansion with store profits and owner loans and minimize the amount of money we borrow from banks. In future months, you will see your contributions at work as our expansion goes forward.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank our owners for your support. I also want to thank our store staff for their past hard work and to thank them in advance for their efforts to make our shopping as pleasant as possible in what will be a very noisy and disruptive work environment with the store's expansion.
Chuck Hungerford
Board President
