Patronage: yours & ours

618 Kensington Road

Syracuse, NY 13210

REAL FOOD SINCE 1972

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

FEBRUARY 23, 2017

PATRONAGE: YOURS & OURS

Patronage. What is it? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: business or activity provided by patrons (that's you; our members) and the power to .......provide other help to people as a reward for their support (that's us; the Co-op). So patronage goes both ways. We at the Co-op are appreciative of the support our members give us on a daily basis and we hope that our members appreciate the fact that we have made our first patronage refund in recent memory or possibly ever.

There are a lot of parts in a patronage refund that must be considered by members other than just the actual money received from the refund. Believe it or not the grocery business is a very low net profit business. When all is said and done, the average nationwide net profit for a small size grocery store is about 1 to 1.5%. So at the end of the year there is not much left in the till to spread around.

Under the patronage system we are now able to lower prices store wide, both through an everyday low price program (Co+op Basics)

and just general price decreases everywhere. There is more to the patronage than just the refund portion (which is 20% of the actual patronage refund), the retained portion (the other 80%) of patronage refunds

builds financial stability, growing our equity and making us a more viable business for lenders. The total patronage allocated is about 1% of your annual purchases.

From our FAQs on patronage:

Here are five ways the Co-op is still different from other stores...

* You own the Co-op.

* The Co-op can only be owned by the people who use it. Publicly traded corporations can be owned by anyone.

* The Co-op exists to provide a service, while publicly traded corporations exist to make a profit for shareholders.

* Our Co-op returns profits based on how much our owners use the service, not how much stock they own.

* Our Co-op is democratically owned by community residents, lending accountability and oversight to store operations.

The greatest benefit to being a member of the Co-op is the Co-op itself.

Owners provide capital to the business -- without our owners the Co-op couldn't exist and now our business model is providing for sharing what profits we can afford to our members while building cash and trying new methods of building the business/providing more/better services, like launching our

Co-op to Go service through Rosie. The Co-op, financially, is doing the best it ever has. Our total equity has grown 50% year over year the last 3 fiscal years.

We hope the above paragraphs give you a better understanding of the patronage model that majority of food co-ops across the country use. Thank you for your patronage and Go Co-op!

STAFF PICKS

Our Giveaway Items On Instagram

syracuserealfoodcoop✨GIVEAWAY ✨ We're giving away a four pack of Evil Twin Imperial Biscotti Break and a Bottle of Evil Twin + Westbrook Brewing Co. Imperial Mexican Biscotti Cake Break!! To enter: like this post on our Instagram page syracuserealfoodcoop and tag a friend. When we reach 1,000 followers we'll select a winner!