Despite an extremely challenging year, the Wild Rose Co-op announced that $1 million in patronage dividends will be paid to members this year, starting this May.

This year, Wild Rose Co-op held their Annual General Meeting in a virtual format for the first time, going live on the evening of Tuesday, March 30.

Board Chair Teresa Beddoes started her report with, “‘We are all in this together,’ a phrase we have repeatedly heard as COVID-19 made its way across the world, disrupting the lives and economics of our co-operative; its members, employees, directors, and all the people of our communities.”

Beddoes said that the Wild Rose Co-operative offers some of the most essential services in the communities it serves, and called 2020: “A remarkable and challenging year for all.”

She said that the good relationships that the Wild Rose Co-op has formed within the communities it serves, along with collaboratively working together as one organization, resulted in the organization coming through the pandemic successfully.

“These successes demonstrate the strengths of our co-op, driven by the people who form its core; our employees and our members.”

Beddoes expressed her pride in the Wild Rose Co-op management and employee team, saying, “They have delivered beyond our expectations.”

She added, “Their dedication, flexibility, and perseverance have been the key components in our ability to continue to provide value to our members with minimal disruption.”

Wild Rose Co-op General Manager Carol Rollheiser said, “For the first time in 2020, we learned that as a food, fuel, and crop supplies provider we became the front line for public safety.”

She said that responsibility not only included keeping team members and shoppers safe, but to ensure that the communities served continued to have access to a dependable food supply.

“Our team members were outstanding, and I would go to battle any day with every one of them.”

Rollheiser said when sales volumes increased by almost double at times, team members doubled down to get product on shelves, find alternatives, change up procedures, and install and work with personal protective equipment and new sanitization measures.

She says, “For the first time in 2020, we saw vehicle traffic volumes drop off a cliff, travel come to a halt, and the commodity price of oil at a negative value.

“While our food stores were experiencing record sales volumes, our fuel business fell. Demand drastically fell, by as much as half at times in the spring.