Tidal Creek Reaches a Milestone

On July 2nd, 2011 Tidal Creek Co-op turns 29 years old! In 1982 the Co-op was incorporated after several years as a buyers club. From these humble beginnings to our present location there are some things that have never changed. Tidal Creek is deeply rooted in the Wilmington area as a true local business. We serve our community in a variety of ways including education, outreach, providing a neighborhood meeting place, and supporting local charities, to name a few.

Tidal Creek is a unique place. First and foremost it is a place to buy your groceries without having to read all the labels. But when you support the Co-op you are also part of creating a healthier future for our community and planet. Some years ago, I realized that there were businesses in town that weren’t just trying to make money but really cared about their customers. Places that got to know folks by name. That’s what led me to Tidal Creek. Wilmington has many wonderful establishments that really care and I’m proud to be a part of one.

On behalf of all our staff I would like to extend our heart felt thanks for being a part of 29 wonderful years at Tidal Creek Cooperative Food Market. We could not have done it without you!

Cooperatively Yours,

Craig Harris
Your General Manager

Holiday Greetings to All Our Co-op Family! This is a delightful time of year for us with the comforting hot soups from the deli, the made from scratch cakes, cookies and pies, wonderful hot coffees and cocoa, egg nog and great local produce!

We have a lot going on at Tidal Creek this time of year. We are excited to show our appreciation to all of our owners for their continued patronage. On Saturday December 6th we are hosting Owner Appreciation Day. As owners of Tidal Creek you will receive a 10% discount on all of your purchases on this day of celebration!

Back by popular demand, the hot bar will be full once again with a warm meal to enjoy. It is a challenge to keep the hot bar profitable with costs of ingredients and packaging increasing coupled with our desire to reduce waste and not raise prices. To make for more opportunities to create delicious foods we have plans for a small kitchen renovation. The plans will make necessary space for production and storage. There are also future plans for additional first floor renovations in the New Year, making space for more natural products, a customer service kiosk in the Wellness department and improved merchandising for our deli and perishable foods.

I know that economic challenges are concerning all of us this Holiday Season. Tidal Creek has been hit with higher costs of goods and services. Even with the price of gas declining the fuel surcharges and increased costs of food and packaging are not going down. We are striving to continue to offer our customers deep savings. Our buyers have been aggressively working with vendors to achieve the best deals.

You can take advantage of these deals by looking out for our various storewide savings programs. Through our Owner Savings we have 123 items at everyday low prices for Co-op Owners. The weekly Get Fresh features 12 items on sale from our fresh departments: produce, deli, perishables, and beer & wine. Our monthly Co-op Advantage Program (CAP) features approximately 110 items on sale. And lastly, there is Feel Good Fridays with 5% off on all our health and beauty products every Friday.

Thanks from all of us here at the Co-op for your continued patronage of your local food co-op. Have a fulfilling holiday season.

Cooperatively yours,
Christine McElwee

I’d like to share highlights from the fiscal year, 2007-2008.

Financial Health
In this year we were able to pay down our debt to the National Coop Bank and to our owners from our move to this location by $50,000.

Our sales for the year were $4,912,539 which was a growth of 9.2% over the previous year sales of $4,539,737

We gave away approximately $36,308 in discounts to Tidal Creek owners to include Owner Appreciation Day, the Wild Card and Feel Good Fridays 5% off discount. This doesn’t include the discounts we give on Owner’s Savings.

Stoneground Bakery
In October 2007 we made the decision to close down Stoneground Baking Company. We have moved the baking production to Tidal Creek. The big learning experience here for all involved was to stick with what we do best and do it under one roof. This spring we were able to sublet the space on Princess Street and we have sold some of the equipment that we didn’t bring up to Tidal Creek. We took a loss on disposal of assets as the equipment we sold had depreciated. We took a loss for the year mostly due to the Bakery.

Rising Costs
Another big factor this year were rising costs of food. We also had dramatic increases in cost of goods sold in our fourth quarter; April through June, due to weather related events and increased fuel surcharges. We did not pass all of the increases in the cost of these products onto our customers at that time. These costs had a big impact on our 4th quarter margin and a slightly negative impact on our overall store margin for the year.

Another increase in operating costs that caused a big impact was our workman’s comp, payroll taxes and health insurance increased approximately 20%. Health insurance costs for our staff increased again in September! The staff will take on an increase in their portion of the cost as will the cooperative.

Training and Education
As part of our Business Plan for the year that just ended we added tools and a workshop for manager’s that helped us budget our labor per our departments. We worked very hard to create more productivity in each department and to streamline our work flow and subsequently staffing schedules towards more efficiencies and productivity.

Through our participation as a member of the National Cooperative Grocer Association (NCGA) many of our staff members attended valuable trainings, conferences and workshops. Most of the costs to do this were paid for by NCGA. Our Marketing Team Jessica Burtt Ashcraft and April Marlow went to two conferences this year, our Front End Manager Christina McKenzie attended NCGA’s Customer Service Champion workshop, and our Store Manager Craig Harris who wears many hats attended the Cooperative Advantage Program Conference (CAP). Last fall our Wellness Manager Renee Montague along with Christina McKenzie attended Train the Trainer workshop, and our General Manager Chris McElwee attended the Annual NCGA meeting and workshops last fall and the Eastern Corridor Meeting in March.

This year we have continued to increase the knowledge and professionalism of our staff. Our Human Resource Director, Alison McCollum earned her Professional in Human Resources (PHR) through the national organization Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI) which works with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The certification requires work experience as well as successfully passing an examination given by the HRCI. Alison also attends monthly seminars presented by the Lower Cape Fear Human Resource Association.

Our Point of Sale (POS) Coordinator Ben Desmond attended ECR University where he learned more of the reporting and efficiency capabilities that we can utilize from our POS system.

Tidal Creek reached a true milestone by completing this year our 8 modules of orientation and staff training that we envisioned at our Annual Planning Retreat in 2006! We have new staff going through the trainings and are finding this a valuable part of our operations.

Throughout fiscal 2007-2008 year we worked on a plan to renovate the first floor. We are monitoring the first quarter sales of this new fiscal year before breaking ground on any one of the pieces of the renovation of our current location. To date, sales are good and while costs are continuing to increase we had planned for this.

Cooperatively yours,
Christine McElwee

We appreciate our owners! I hope you were able to come and shop with us for Owner Appreciation Day on July 21st. The next Owner Appreciation will be in December, close to the holidays.

Eating locally produced food is becoming a real focus not just for the cooperatively minded but is showing up in broader communities. Tidal Creek is proud of its strong connections and support of local farmers. This summer Tidal Creek sponsored a month long Eat Local Challenge. It gained attention from the local media about localvorism. The Challenge also prepared us to better source a variety of local product options for each food category. Thanks to all for making this a successful adventure. This fall will bring another local farm tour. Stay tuned to the co-op calendar (page 15).

PRICE CONCERNS
Our growers, manufacturers and distributors have had to adjust for the recent changes in weather patterns, the Midwest floods and the rising cost of oil. This adjustment is passed along to us by way of increases in the cost of goods. We are watching this closely and will absorb some of this increase internally whenever possible. We continue to offer great value through our Owners Savings program, deep discounts on everyday items, and the Cooperative Advantage Program (CAP).

In June we introduced our weekly Get Fresh program featuring produce, deli, specialty cheeses, perishables, bulk and beer and wine items. Look for the green flier as you enter the door by the produce department.

DELI CHANGES
This summer we also adjusted our offerings from the deli to include a lot more products in the grab and go cooler. We have some wonderful new sandwiches and the Chef’s Specials are fantastic meal solutions. We are continuing to work on expanding these options.

We’ve heard the complaints from those missing the hot bar food after 3pm and realize this may have impacted some of our core customers. This change came after months of monitoring. The evening hot bar was very labor intensive and generated too much waste at the end of the day with leftover food. By looking at the bigger picture we chose to focus on areas that can contribute more to the product mix with less costs and waste. This fall we will introduce packaged hot items after 3pm on the hot bar for eating here or taking home.

NEW CO-OPS
I feel that cooperatives are uniquely suited to change with the times. We began and continue to be adaptable to meet our owner’s needs because of our focus on democratic participation and community. After many years of no new food co-ops opening and a few older food co-ops closing their doors this past fiscal year has seen the opening of 11 new co-op stores!

Here is the list of the towns where new co-ops opened in the last year: Baltimore, Maryland; Carbondale, Colorado; Missoula, Montana; Northampton, Massachusetts; Oakland, California; Paoli, Indiana; Pocatello, Idaho; Reno, Nevada; Stoughton, Wisconsin; Wykoff, Minnesota; & Yelm, Washington.

It is exciting to see the food cooperative movement grow!

If you are interested in donating to help the Midwest farmers affected by the floods you may join others by contacting the North Country Cooperative Development Fund (www.ncdf.coop). NCDF has graciously made its Cooperative Disaster Relief Fund (501c3 status) a collection and disbursement agent for monies allocated for co-op farmer-suppliers affected by the recent flooding.

Cooperatively your,
Christine McElwee

Hi Co-op Owners! Please let me to take this time to update you on some new things here at the Co-op.

We participate in a monthly sales promotion, Cooperative Advantage Program (CAP), which allow us to pass on some big savings. These monthly items are tagged with a white glossy sign. Several of the products are often featured on our end caps.

In addition to these great monthly savings we will be offering a new weekly sales program called “Get Fresh”. This program will feature items on sale from our produce, perishables, beer/wine, meat, deli and bulk departments. We hope you enjoy this new program and take advantage of these great weekly savings.

Beginning in June we will be offering meal solutions everyday on the hot bar, starting at 3pm. These will be prepared items that can be taken home or enjoyed in the cafe. In addition we will be putting out a fresh casserole choice and pulling our lunch menu. This will give you better options of fresh made meal choices from the co-op’s deli. There will be vegan choices as well as non-vegan choices.

Mark your calendars! To show our appreciation to you our owners we will be happily hosting Owner Appreciation Day on Saturday, July 12th. Come in to enjoy the day with us and receive a 10% discount on purchases. If you aren’t an owner of our Co-op please consider joining at this time. Besides being an owner of a local business, we have many other great savings for our owners such as our Owner Savings program and Wild Card coupons.

Our great Co-op Staff have worked hard this year and we are having a really good second half of the fiscal year, recovering significantly from our adventure in running a bakery. The bakery space downtown has been sublet. Our yearly audit begins July 1st and we hope to have good news for you at our annual meeting in the fall. Stay tuned!

Cooperatively yours,
Christine McElwee

We are happy to inform you that we have worked out an arrangement with UNCW for overflow customer parking. Additional Tidal Creek customer parking is available in the UNCW lot facing the Co-op, with teal lines. The passes are available to those customers who shop multiple times a week and don’t mind crossing the green space. Other complex businesses are participating as well, Wilmington Yoga Center students and bakery employees.

If you want to have an ensured parking spot while helping us with the parking crunch issue please come by the customer service desk, contact Jessica Ashcraft or myself. Passes must be displayed in dashboard to make certain you don’t receive a parking ticket.

With additional secured parking we are finalizing our renovation plans for the first floor. This plan includes the possibility of moving the Wellness Department to where our former Community Center, Suite 102. A separate health and beauty boutique would give us the opportunity to provide you with better customer service, a calmer atmosphere to display our products and the opportunity for a customer reference area.

We are planning on rearranging the deli which will increase the selection of deli items to include prepared main course dishes and appetizing sides. Renovation plans for Tidal Creek include expanding the produce and packaged grocery departments as well as a new housewares section.

The board and staff are excited about utilizing more of our first floor space for additional goods and services. We will keep you informed as our plans move forward.

In this edition of the newsletter we are listing all of the things that Tidal Creek has been doing to reduce our carbon footprint. We will continue to research ideas, make changes and keep you informed about what we are doing.

Several requests were received to provide outdoor recycling bins. This fits right in with our goal of ‘greening’ the Co-op! Two large bins are available on the sidewalk for recycling.

Have a great spring!!
Cooperatively yours,
Christine McElwee