Record membership, a new regional distribution center, and our strongest year of patronage returns — built, as always, by the hands and votes of the people who own this cooperative.
Dear member-owners — this was the year our cooperative grew into the regional food hub we imagined a decade ago.
When 14,820 of you renewed or joined this year, you did more than shop with us — you reaffirmed a model where the people who eat the food also own the store. That ownership funded the single biggest investment in our history: the Riverfork Distribution Center, which lets us buy directly from 40 more local farms and cut produce miles by nearly a third.
We did it while holding to our values. Revenue grew 12% to $31.6M, yet we returned $1.42M to members in patronage dividends and kept our local-sourcing share above 60%. Growth, for a cooperative, is never the goal in itself — it is the means to a fairer, shorter, more resilient food chain.
Behind those numbers is a simple discipline: every dollar of surplus is either returned to you, reinvested in shorter supply chains, or set aside as the reserve that lets us keep prices fair when markets do not. This report is our full account of how your ownership was put to work in 2025 — and of the plan it makes possible for the year ahead.
A cooperative measures a good year not by what it kept, but by what it returned — to its members, its farmers, and its watershed.Mara Lindqvist, Board President
Three years of steady membership gains reached an inflection point in 2025. The new Riverfork Distribution Center, financed by member equity and a cooperative-bank term loan, doubled our cold-storage capacity and brought 40 additional family farms into direct supply — the foundation for the next decade of local growth. Member-owners grew 18% to 14,820, the largest single-year gain in our history.
Demand outpaced our single warehouse, and rising freight costs eroded margins on out-of-region produce. A regional hub was the only way to keep prices fair and sourcing local at this scale.
More local choice, more stable prices, and a stronger patronage pool — plus 28 new cooperative jobs and a teaching kitchen opening to members in spring 2026.
The Riverfork investment was deliberately financed without raising prices or levying a member assessment: roughly two-thirds came from members converting patronage into equity, the remainder from a patient cooperative-bank loan that the center's own efficiencies are already repaying. It is the clearest expression of the cooperative principle this year — members funding the infrastructure that, in turn, pays members back.
The cooperative finished the year financially healthy: revenue and patronage both grew, the distribution-center loan is comfortably serviced, and member equity strengthened. Figures below are summarized from audited statements; the full audit is available to members on request.
Member equity rose to $6.8M — the deepest balance sheet in our history, and the buffer that lets us keep prices fair when markets do not.Dev Anand, Treasurer
With the hard infrastructure in place, 2026 is about depth — serving our farmers and members better, not simply growing larger.
Our board has set three priorities for the coming year: open the Riverfork teaching kitchen and double member education hours; raise the local-sourcing share past 65%; and launch a farmer-financing fund that advances working capital to the small growers who supply our shelves. Each is funded within current operations — no new member assessment is proposed.
Open the teaching kitchen and grow member cooking, preserving, and budgeting classes to 200 sessions a year.
Push local sourcing past 65% and publish a transparent farm-by-farm sourcing map for members.
Launch a $300K farmer-financing fund offering low-cost seasonal working capital to supplying growers.
Thank you for owning this with us. Every share you hold is a vote for a food system that pays its farmers and feeds its neighbors.On behalf of the Board and 14,820 member-owners
Financial figures are summarized from statements audited by Cedar & Brook LLP. Patronage allocations are subject to member ratification at the Annual General Meeting. The complete audited financials and bylaws are available to any member-owner on request.