NIPAWIN — Pineland Co-op in Nipawin and Lake Country Co-op in Prince Albert are considering merging.
“We’ve worked with Lake Country for a couple years and we tried to see how everything worked out, and everything worked out better than we expected,” said Morley Doerksen, Pineland’s president. “We’re getting really good management from Lake Country. Our managers and Lake Country managers work really well together.”
Doerksen said there are several reasons the board is considering the merger. One of those is that by amalgamating, they can save costs by bulk purchasing for the two co-ops.
“You do save on transportation of the goods. You can split a load of lumber or buy some hardware in bulk, you can save that way and we’ll also receive money from Federated Co-op if this does go through.”
Another reason for the amalgamation is splitting risks.
“We’re a bigger geographical area, so if we have adverse weather in one area it might hit the market on one side and the other side might have a good crop so it kind of spreads the risk out,” he said. “It makes it so you’re not so vulnerable if something goes sideways.”
Doerksen said he believes membership equity will rise from an amalgamation “by far.”
“Historically, Lake Country pays about 50 per cent more equity than Pineland does. We’re a strong co-op, but they do pay a little bit better equity. They also pay their members out at 65, 20 per cent a year until they’re 69.”
Despite this estimated increase of equity, he said this isn’t the main reason for the amalgamation.
“It’s just the working together, the brainstorming. We’re getting more competition out there now so we have to work together harder just to stay relevant and stay competitive.”
In the past two years the two co-ops shared both expertise and equipment.
“We’d go backwards if we withdrew from the management agreement with Lake Country and moved on our own,” Doerksen said.
“We’re getting really good management now and our teams work together really well and they share equipment and knowledge. If we did lose that we would be going backwards.”
A meeting to hear from members will be held at the Nipawin Home Centre on Dec. 19 from 3 to 6 p.m.
Doerksen said this serves to get feedback from the members and answer any questions they might have. Using public feedback, the board delegates will make a decision on whether or not to go through with the amalgamation.
“It’s basically the delegates decide at the Pineland Co-op. None of this has been decided at Lake Country either. We’re kind of preliminary a little bit here yet.”
A member information meeting on the amalgamation will then be held in the Evergreen Centre on Jan. 9 at 7:30 p.m.
