“Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.” 

~John Muir

2017 ANNUAL REPORT

Because we are a member-owned cooperative, we are constantly pushing for as much transparency as possible when it comes to our reporting. Every year we publish our financial data for all our membership to see because our membership has a vested interest in our success!
We are a triple bottom line business, which means all our decisions are based on the answers to three questions - is it a good financial decision? Is it a good environmental decision? Is it a good social decision? We are always striving to take the path that most helps our business, supports a sustainable environment, and cares for our community and communities around the world.
As such, we are excited every year to share relevant data that impacts our triple bottom line and how we are holding ourselves to the highest possible standard for all three measures of a successful business.
The most important information we provide in our yearly annual report is our profit statement. Without running a smart, financially successful business, we won't have the resources to provide for our community and the environment. To see the full data we have assembled, click on either of the images above to get an expanded version of the report.
In 2017, we brought in

$4.3 million

in sales, and were able to make a net profit of

$104,888

, for a 2.4% profit margin (grocery stores are famous for having to run incredibly slim profit margins to remain in business, and we are no exception).
What did we do with our largest yearly profit

EVER

as a community owned cooperative? Well, we reinvested it into growing our store to better fill the needs of Northern Nevada. The majority of investment went into our new cafe, The Food Shed. We also invested significantly in growing our food hub,

DROPP

(Distributors of Regional and Organic Produce and Products) so we could continue supporting more and more local farmers and ranchers. We also invested in a much-needed security camera system, and rebuilt our crumbling patio to keep our customers safe (and to keep the shopping cart movement to a less deafening decibel level).
Looking back at 2017 is also a great way to take what we've accomplished and apply it to our future growth. Last year our amazing board of directors took the time to put together a four year strategic plan to guide our big picture decision making. This way, we will be able to make sure our decisions are the best we can make to support our local community!
Check out our strategic plan below (click to embiggen):

Here you can see the four areas that we are committed to for the next four years.
It starts with the basics: keeping our business healthy, by growing all three of our triple bottom line metrics: financial, environmental, and social justice growth.
After that, we are focusing on growing our local food system! We've already started down that path by investing $18,000 in our food hub, DROPP, so we can reach more restaurants and businesses with local food. Later this year we will be hosting a

FREE

farmer training to help our farms grow their own businesses and be able to provide the community with even more local food!
We will also be directing attention to growing our awareness, both by reaching more and more people in Northern Nevada, and also by deepening our current community's knowledge of all we do to build more sustainable food systems.
Finally, we are excited to focus on advocacy and education and helping as many people as possible understand how important it is to support stable local food systems, and to help them find the tools to participate to the best of each person's ability.

2017 MEANS LOCAL!
 
Supporting local farmers and ranchers ties in to all three of our bottom line goals: We are financially able to set ourselves apart as a business by supporting local to the degree that we do, we are able to reduce food miles and carbon emissions by purchasing food from closer, and we are able to contribute fair wages to the very people in Northern Nevada that work the hardest to grow our food!

In 2017, we are proud to say that we gave more than $450,000 to local and regional farmers, ranchers, and producers! That is in the form of direct payment for food grown in our foodshed, going directly back into our local economy and supporting the 101 local and regional farms and ranches we buy from. That is an 11% increase in the amount of dollars we paid out to local farmers over 2016, and comes out to be nearly a fifth of the money we spent on food for all of 2017!

This support for local farms and ranches is nothing more than the steady accumulation of community support, one purchase at a time. And when enough people get together and choose to support local farms or ranches or beekeepers, amazing things happen. 

In just one year, we sold 3,904 pounds of local and regional honey, coming from Al Bees, Dharma Bees, Hidden Valley Honey, and MacDougall Apiaries. To put that in perspective, that's 214 million miles that Nevada bees traveled to make that much honey! 

We were able to provide our member-owners with more than 44 THOUSAND local and regional eggs! These eggs are ALL produced with organic practices, where all chickens (and duck and quail) have plentiful outdoor access, plenty of fresh forage, and never any GMOs. Industrial egg producers are among the worst environmental, animal rights, and worker rights abusers in the country, but the way to change that system is to do what so many of you have already done - vote with your dollar and support local eggs!

We also sold 4,443 pounds of local and regional tomatoes in 2017 - and that's not counting the tomatoes we sold to restaurants through DROPP, or the tomatoes we used as frequently as possible in our kitchen! That's more than two tons of tomatoes, or enough to provide more than 200 people with a year's supply of tomatoes, just coming from local and regional farms like Dayton Valley Aquaponics, Greg's Organics, Lattin Farms, Bee Here Now, Prema, and Pioneer!



NEW HOURS!
Thank you all for showing us such wonderful support as we opened our long-awaited upstairs cafe! As many of you already know, we were closing at 2:30 PM every day, but that has officially changed!
We are now keeping the cafe open the whole time the store is open! That's right, from 7:30AM to 9:00PM, you can come upstairs, relax, and grab some soup, hot panini sandwiches, gourmet toasts, burritos, fresh juices, smoothie bowls, or fresh baked goods until we close. Did you know that everything on our menu is either organic or local or a gluten-free/vegan alternative? Yep, that's what we're all about and exactly why we named our cafe the Food Shed Cafe. 
We have plenty of delicious gluten-free, vegan, paleo, raw and vegetarian options for everyone, so come by and visit!

SEEDLING SALE SAVE THE DATE

EVERYONE IS WELCOME!  Open every day from 8am-9pm
Our mailing address is:
240 Court St Reno, NV 89501
775.324.6133
info@greatbasinfood.coop
Please share this with your community or sign up here to stay in the loop!
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can or