Wilco Maintains Co-op Equity Revolve Payouts and Allocates New Member Equities totaling $1,574,526
Wilco Maintains Co-op Equity Revolve Payouts and Allocates New Member Equities totaling $1,574,526 to Oregon and Washington Farmer-Owners
Wilco, a Mt. Angel, Oregon based cooperative, announced April member equity revolve cash payments of $485,367 to Wilco and HGO Co-op members from past business done in 2011 and additional new patronage equity allocations for the fiscal year 2019 totaling $1,080,159; including $432,063 in cash payments.
Each year, the cooperative’s profits are used to grow and operate the business, pay cash patronage, allocate new owner equities, and return past equity back to farmer owners. President & CEO Sam Bugarsky said, “Our mission is to strengthen agriculture, and the cooperative business model allows us to do that directly with profits paid back to farmers.”
Even with substantial investments in growth these past years, adding more retail stores, launching e-commerce on farmstore.com, expanding fuel services to include propane delivery and the new Hazelnut Growers of Oregon (HGO) state-of-the-art processing plant in Donald, Wilco has remained financially healthy and able to revolve prior year’s equity.
“The great thing about a cooperative is our membership can benefit multiple times. Farmer-owners may receive discounts on their supplies at the retail stores, ag centers and fuel deliveries, or top-of-the-market hazelnut field prices with HGO, then when the year is over, they have the opportunity to share in any profits.” says Bugarsky.
Patronage decisions and the company’s direction are all decided by Wilco’s elected Board of Directors, all farmers and customers. The experienced and extensively trained Wilco Directors are known throughout the nation in cooperative circles as one focused on the future, and the continued stream of checks going out to farmers is the ultimate scorecard.
To learn more about the cooperative or how to become a farmer-owner member, contact Wilco’s Customer Care Team at the Contact Us link on wilco.coop, farmstore.com or hazelnut.com.
