Following the headliner turn by Mayor Jim Kenney at the Fall General Membership Meeting, General Manager Jon Roesser turned to Weavers Way finances.

“At its heart, this is a business meeting and we do have some business to attend to,” he said, walking members through a set of figures for Fiscal 2017, which spanned July 1, 2016-June 2017, and providing snapshots of performance since the summer.

He noted to applause that overall sales continued to increase in FY17 from $21.8 million to $22.2 million, a 2.19 percent rise, “so we remain a growing organization.”

Addressing gross margin, he said, “We all have to put on our owner caps for this slide: We are owners of this enterprise, these are dollars we use to run our operation, the dollars we have left after we’re done paying for goods that we sell.” 

And gross margin slipped from 36.88 percent in FY16 to 36.66 in FY17, “which doesn’t sound like a big deal — it really isn’t a huge big deal — but that means a loss of margin dollars . . . that’s $50,000 less we have to run the business.”

Meanwhile, labor costs edged up, from $5.6 million in FY16 to just over $5.7 million, or 25.6 percent of sales to 25.8. Again, not a huge number, Roesser said, attributing it partly to increases in heath insurance premiums.

That FY17 was a period of some disruption was borne out in net income. “A scary number: We lost $91,000” compared to FY16, when net income was $291,441. “But the really important number is our adjusted net income, because so many of our expenses are one-time expenses related to the Ambler project,” Roesser explained. With those expenses subtracted, “the core business was profitable at $173,000.”

Now, “if you want to know why our gross margin is down, here’s why,” Roesser continued, putting up a slide showing membership statistics:

Active members as of June 30: 7,142. “We increased membership by 1,103 in FY17; that’s great,” Roesser said, to applause.

Working members: 2,418. “So 704 more working members.”

 Senior Tuesday Discount participants: 883, increased by 96 households 

Food For All, our needs-based discount program: 115, an increase of 30 households. 

“So these programs, the Working Member program, the Food For All program, the Senior Tuesday program, they’re all good programs. I’m glad that we have them — super-happy that all of them have expanded — but understand as a business owner what this means: These programs entail discounts that cost us margin,” Roesser said. “And again, I’m not saying that that’s bad. I’m just saying it’s true.”

Moving on to FY18, which started July 1, 2017, Roesser said Mt. Airy sales continue to increase year over year, at $3.9 million vs. $3.7 million during the same period last fall — a 6.7 percent increase. The Chestnut Hill store also did better than the same period last year, $3.9 million compared to $3.8 million, a 2.16 percent increase. 

Roesser also noted that since the Ambler store opened Oct. 11, Chestnut Hill has seen a decline in sales of about 5 percent: “We’ve seen some sales migration, which we anticipated.”

As for Ambler, Roesser said store sales so far are about $145,000 a week. “That puts us at about $7.5 million a year if that number holds. That sales figure is just about what we budgeted for. We need to get to about $8 million annually for the store to be profitable.”

“The store is doing well, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback from the community, a lot of new members have joined since we opened. So things are going great. I do encourage you to get out there and take a look if you haven’t been there,” he said.