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The Co-op and Extra Foods and all that.
Particularly all that.
We have the write-up in the Star, Feb. 15, focusing on the Co-op, with nothing said about the other major player (1 of 3) in this - Extra Foods - aside from: Over the past three years the Co-op has been in conversation with Extra Foods and despite discussing lease options they decided to buy the property instead. Which is an oversimplification - far from fact. With a time-warp component yet!
Then - in an update, Feb. 17, giving Extra some overdue space - the Star mentions that 40 employees will be out of work when Extra closes.
An Express item, Feb. 17, is a short-cut to as-will-be: even less mention of Extra.
Extra Foods
The Co-op did NOT converse with Extra over the past three years but only with the building's owner - James Howe, a local - seemingly since last year, when the Co-op announced its move into Extra premises on a leasing-basis. In fact, the Co-op has never connected with Extra. This is a significant distinction, because the Star write-up makes it appear as if Extra gives-up the premises amicably - over a latte sort of.
Not so - they had no intention of moving out now! After the parent-company - Loblaw - just recently installed a completely new cash-register system and upgraded its corporation-wide electronic connections, including Nelson's Extra.
Just as Extra had no intention of moving out when the Co-op approached the owner (initially?) last year. Extra's lease is between Loblaw and Mr. Howe. When the Co-op negotiated with him then, there actually was nothing to negotiate legally, because Extra still had one year left on its five-year lease, and this lease stipulates that Loblaw has the first right of refusal. At that time no Extra/Howe renegotiation had been opened yet.
Thus last year's announcement by the Co-op of its imminent move (and subsequent decision to withhold the year's "member-dividend" because of it) today looks rather odd. As does its soon-after announcement that the move was off - supposedly - because the owner's demands could/would not be met by the Co-op - supposedly.
It seems that Loblaw entered this year's lease-renegotiations in good faith - see the tech upgrades mentioned above - but they would not meet the owner's demands. Ultimately, the very recent and public turn of events rattled Extra just as much as it did the owner of the Co-op's current location.
There is much room for speculation as to goings-on between the Co-op and Mr. Howe over time; what is clear though is that the Co-op is leaving there and entering here on a note at best sounding shrill and flat. Very!
Soon Extra Employees
30 in-store employees will lose their job; an additional 10 or so are outside support employees. Of course - with these 40 having families - many more are directly affected. Example: a young couple - both working at Extra - with a new baby and mortgage.
Tom Chamber-of-Commerce Thomson's input is only so much empty rhetoric, what with ... a number of displaced workers ... and ... the possibility ... of being able to assimilate some of those folks over at the Great Canadian Wholesale Club down at Lakeside Drive or Save-On Foods or Safeway. Right - assimilate some of those folks over down at. Obviously, these stores hire their folks on a need-now basis - they will not take on Extra folks, coming from charitable urges only.
Deirdrie Lang, Co-op general manager, in the Express piece talks about the Co-op being committed to making the best decisions for the larger community. Actually, it is not up to Ms. Lang to make such decisions. Reaching out to extra Extra employees now may be a good one though: not only for these soon-to-be jobless but also as a PR-move to contain sloshing-about ripples in the pond. Wet!
Extra Customers
About half of Extra's customers are on low and/or fixed incomes; many of those are elderly without transportation. Based on pricing: the Wholesale place on Lakeside will be their only option. How these elderly will get there is problematic. Not only in terms of distance but also conditions along lower Hall and Lakeside: heavy, complicated and fast-moving traffic, no sidewalks and often extreme weather-conditions.
The Co-op's simulated FAQ sheets Did you hear the BIG NEWS? - in answer to its rhetorical question about what will happen to Extra customers - promises: It is our intention to offer a new Co-op that is accessible for our entire community.
Physically yes; price- and productwise not so much.
The Co-op seems to have this vision of soon turning everybody into gluten-free tree-huggers. As comforting as that may sound to many - it won't to all, particularly those who just get on with their lives as best as they can. There needs to be respect for and acceptance of other life-styles - that's what community is all about!
This reminds me of Mitt Romney's attitude that poverty is telegenic - the poor being rather less so.
The New It/Costs
The Co-op will take-over a completely empty box with a leaky roof. Neither walls nor roof can support any major structural modifications -
the place was not built to be anything but what it is now.
The fundamental difference here between leasing and owning is that leasing would have meant pretty much making do with what is: possibly a band-aid on the roof, some non-structural dividing, a paint-job, a customer-accessible toilet, their own curtains. While buying is for keeps - a total redo to fit a long-term vision and protect their investment. According to today's rules. Of course: the more improvement - the higher the overhead and taxes!
The initial estimate of about 3 mill - just to be able to move in on a lease - will now be substantially higher. Any development of the property - aside from making the box doable as a store - would raise costs to astronomical levels. But that to what end - seeing that Nelson's economy is in the dumps and - at best - will stay there, unless City Hall comes up with a workable rethink - the much-touted sustainability on wheels. Meaning that there may not be any revenue-generating demand from the outside for major development within the property.
So Deirdrie Lang's proclamation of this (being) an incredible opportunity for ... the City of Nelson and our entire region is a tad over the top. The whole world? Oh, Deirdrie!
On a more prosaic level, this actually could be an incredible opportunity for the city taxwise and a temporary fix for local builders and their suppliers. To them - the more the better!
75% + 25% = 0
According to some in the know: considering to free all of the Co-op's available financial reserves for the construction redo runs two red flags up the pole real quick like.
1.
If they need the so far untouchable 25% - a pittance in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much it may (can only) be - they're worried and into robbing piggy-banks.
2.
By putting all their reserves into readying the new place - they will fly without a parachute. Asking for big trouble, what with reality usually ending-up much more costly than estimates promised. And then what!
Back into the store as such. Dividing the space to rent-out part of it is dicey - we have enough empty space in town. Initially, the proximity of the Co-op may be an attraction to other natural organic retailers - thus, presumably, natural organic customers. But if the unnatural inorganics stay away from the Co-op - because they get their Pringles elsewhere - they may stay away from these retailers as well.
An aside -
What with the natural label getting much negative press lately, and who knows what natural organic means to begin with: it my behoove the Co-op to change that part of its moniker. How about a new - real - name, period?
Any kind of Co-op-owned non-grocery unit within the box - like a cafe or whatever - may have a negative impact on similar businesses in the vicinity or Nelson. And how communal is that!
Inventory
Space for and investment in inventory: True - the box will provide more space for more stuff, but how much more stuff does the average customer need? Hasn't the Co-op been pretty much (in some cases more than) providing what people need within this context? Adding more minutiae to the inventory may fill shelves and find the occasional customer, yet a cardinal rule in supermarketing is: fill shelves with as little as possible made to look like as much as possible - then sell big quickly. Don't abuse your credit to stock inventory with little turnover - thus no significant return NOW! The Co-op won't be able to sustain doing that financially.
Wanting to offer more food-stuffs is partly co-oppish ego and partly a push for more income through gratuitous consumption. Cute food. The Co-op is already doing that with miles of aisles of boxed breakfast cereals. And it carries more chocolate bars in town than most - all of interchangeable quality, only from different producers.
From co-operative to co-orporate!
As Kathy Lette says in
The Llama Parlour:
You just can't have everything. I mean, where would you put it?
I'll say!
Size isn't everything. Just because the premises will be larger - yes, a supermarket! - does not necessarily mean more customers. And there's no guarantee of quicker check-outs - all supermarkets have the same check-out problem. And this problem will persist as long as people absolutely have to go shopping for loads when other people absolutely have to go shopping for loads. As they do purposely at Whole Foods anywhere, turning them into preferred pick-up places - with working it in long and slow check-out lines being an art-form!
Surely, the Co-op could be roomier, but glomping onto the Extra property just because it's there and extra-big presents great and extra challenges, ordinarily not connected with a move from here to there. This undertaking is in danger of becoming a very expensive (and stubborn) vanity project.
I have had no problem with the Co-op's current space and stock, and I recently have begun to feel comfortable with its pricing-system: but now I am concerned with the strong probability that prices will go up again to help finance a move into ever higher/stronger/faster. Again: to what end?
I don't see myself indirectly/directly - in the glow of co-opping - giving financial support indefinitely to this organization, which ought to be tuned into today's overall capitalist-economic, environmental and ecological circumstances enough to behave more modestly.
I will miss Extra.
The Co-op will hold a meeting ostensibly to ask members for a Yes or No on the piggy-bank issue: Mon. Mar. 19, 19:00, at the Best Western Baker Street Inn. At this point - it will be the only topic!
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ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Vancouver, I used to shop at the East End Food Coop that had both organic and non organic food. I was a member and it was a good deal. The non organic was still whole foods and, while I'd like to buy all organic, I just couldn't do it back then. I wonder if the coop here could ever be flexible enough to adjust their mission statement to include both non and organic foods if they are intending to make this move.
ReplyDeleteBitch bitch bitch. It's refreshing to see the 'little guy' take down the big box chain for a change. So 40 people are out of work but some will pick up work at RCWC and some even might get jobs at an expanded Co-op. I shop both stores and am tired of Extra's (and RCWC's) flyers which are really wish lists of stuff they might have in stock. We have two half assed Loblaws stores in town - I'm fine with a whole one like they have in Grand Forks.
ReplyDeleteDoorknob your name says it all! RCWC has nothing to do with the extra foods! Not one employee is being offered work anywhere yes they are owned by the same person in the end. Galan Weston under the Company name Loblaw’s that is a subsidiary company of George Westin Limited. Much the same as Jim Patterson owns Save-On, Overwaitea, and urban fare. Loblaw’s also has about 12 grocery store chains that operate as independent banners under Loblaw’s. Extra Foods in Nelson is a Franchise Store not a corporate store! What does this mean Doorknob? Its locally owned and operated! It means That a person has bought into the company Loblaw’s for the right to use their name and sell their products eg. Presidents choice and No Name! Why would someone want to do this? because it give the franchise the ability to buy their store stock from Loblaw’s warehouse at a much lesser price than if he were to be an independent grocer and reflect those savings to the consumer! when Loblaw’s buys to stock their warehouse they buy tremendous amounts of stock at a time from any given vendor much the same as Wal-Mart. There is huge price breaks when buying in these types of numbers. Remember the saying "there is power in numbers". The Extra Foods Flyer is a company wide flyer designed for the corporate stores. You would see the same flyer in Vancouver as you would see in nelson. Priority shipping however is given to the corporate stores! Franchises do the best they can to honour the flyer can. If you ever read the fine print on the flyer you might understand this! Also all stores are not created equal! You mention Grand Forks? Obviously you have seen this store then? It is over double the size of the nelson store! Is it any surprise that you may not find all the things you are looking for in the little nelson store! The bottom line is still the bottom line. Extra Foods is the cheapest place in town to buy needed essentials to survive, flyer or no flyer! Try to argue that! So what if you cant get that star-fruit that was in the flyer or certain kind of yogurt. You can always get the essentials, Milk, bread, broccoli, pasta, meat, eggs etc. And yes once in a while shit happens. A truck gets stuck on the pass, a freezer breaks down, an order gets missed. That’s Life, learn to deal with it cause it happens to everyone. Really the Little guy in this situation is Extra Foods. Its co-op that is going against its very operating principals and being the capitalist here! they are the ones pushing the little guy that looks after the little people of nelson that have relied on the store for over 30 years in order to grow their business. and lets face it there are quite a few options as far as empty buildings available in this town that are bigger than there current location that both allow for them to grow and not hurt where 6500+ customers a week buy their food! Spend an hour and watch coop shoppers, what they buy, how much they buy etc. There is nothing that justifies expanding. It will not make customers buy more! after all it is this location that has made them profitable in the first place. It is an optical illusion, a small cluttered house looks full when a few people are in the living room. Put that same clutter in a house three times bigger with the same people and it looks desolate! Co-ops customer base is there customer base as with extra foods and all the other grocery stores in town. People shop where they shop. All co-op is doing is expanding there costs! Oh yeah don’t forget the coffee shop they want to open as well right between 2 more family run local businesses sidewinders and grounded. Just a little more capitalism wont hurt anyone right!?!?
ReplyDeleteway to support the granola!, douchbag, i mean doorknob. who cares about the people loosing their jobs, and the customers that needthe sale items, and cheap prices to get by, because maybe they can't afford 5 dollar"organic" peppers. your a goof. go support the Co op you tree hugger, just don't forget to pay for parking and fix the oil leaks on your car puffing smoke every all over town.
ReplyDeleteCo-Op has hired many since they closed down Extra Foods.
ReplyDeleteHow many of the 40 have found employment at Co-Op?
Closing Extra Foods in the manner they did was not co-operative nor community minded.
Legacy of Greed.