Like many retailers, the pandemic has been difficult, but WestView Co-op saw some bright spots despite the challenges.
WestView Co-op held its AGM on Tuesday, July 27. There was very little movement on the board. Judy Edwards has resigned, and Kathy Little of Drumheller and Eric Poettcker of Acme, who were also board members of Drumheller Co-op were re-elected to their seats. There is currently one vacancy.
New general manager Mike Isaak tells the Mail it was an up and down year.
“The food centres and the home centres, they had a good year,” he said. “With food, it was an essential service so, we saw lots of improvements on the food side.”
For the last couple of years, petroleum buoyed the business along, but that wasn’t the case as the pandemic hit.
“The area that was troubled was our energy side, our agro and our petroleum side, because of energy prices,” he said, adding the Co-op did not receive a patronage refund from Federated Co-op for petroleum, cutting into net savings.
Over the last few months energy has been rebounding globally.
“We hope things can continue, everything is opening up and things will start to level out,” he said.
The Co-op showed resiliency through COVID-19.
“Through the pandemic, we were fortunate enough to keep our employee complement and our businesses operating, where some had to reduce their team complement and some even had to shut their doors,” said Isaak.
“I think we are very optimistic on the road ahead. We have great people, a great team, and we are looking at what is coming. We have a very positive outlook on where we’re heading.”
