Photo by Becky Nightingale Johns
GM Update December 2025
December 10, 2025
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.
― Edith Sitwell
Belfast around the holidays is a special place. Holiday lights glow in shop windows, the giant tree shines in Post Office Square, and town favorite “Broke Neck Santa” lovingly watches over all of us. I personally love seeing our co-op dressed up in its holiday best. For me, it’s a reminder that the world is a beautiful place, people are inherently good, and there is always a reason to hope.
We wrapped our 2024-2025 fiscal year at the end of September, and on behalf of the BCC workers and the Board of Directors, I want to thank you all for your overwhelming support this past year. We saw a staggering 34.5% increase in sales over the previous year. Sales growth in the new store was expected, given that we spent the previous fiscal year enmeshed in construction, but I could never have predicted that degree of increase. That’s not the only number that surpassed expectations. We were able to increase our cash by over $500,000 and grew our membership to over 6,000 Belfast Community Co-op owners—a 13% increase over the previous year! We diverted 16,875 pounds of food waste in the past year through our partnership with ScrapDogs Community Compost. Local products accounted for 34.7% of our sales in the last year, and organic products accounted for just over 24%. This includes MOFGA-certified items as well as products labeled by the USDA as 100% certified organic. Despite all of the cultural and economic upheaval this past year, your community-owned food co-op was able to grow its impact in size and scope!
This past fiscal year, nearly $80,000 in donations went to BCC Common Cents recipients, a 29% increase over last year! Our largest monthly donation ever in Common Cents history was in August, with $8,276.65 going to Restorative Justice Project Maine! The kindness and generosity of this community is truly inspiring, and I am so thankful that the Co-op has been able to provide a vehicle for charitable giving through this program. Thank you to our Owners for voting in the 2026 crop of Common Cents recipients, best of luck to all of them!
The holidays inevitably cast a light on our friends and neighbors who struggle to make ends meet, and this year, when so much is in flux and so many are doing without, we are doing what we can to help alleviate that need. Belfast Community Co-op shoppers have donated over $6,000 in the past few months to the Belfast Soup Kitchen through our direct donation program at the registers, and owners donated another $2,000 worth of Owner Rewards to both the soup kitchen and to our CORE (Cooperative Ownership Reaching Everyone) program. In November, we gave $600 to the local indigenous group Niweskok. Our recent Taste the Holiday event was a great success with local vendors and a free wine tasting. For every shopper who visited that day we gave .50$ to United Midcoast Charities, totaling $541 donated! Additionally, we once again partnered with Waldo Community Action Partners and the Neighbor for Neighbor program to bring holiday gifts to 15 children in need in our community through the Holiday Giving Tree. Your kindness and generosity in caring for your neighbors during this time of great need is inspiring.
As we prepare to say goodbye to 2025 and look ahead to the new year, I am filled with immense gratitude for this incredible community and what we’ve accomplished together. The Co-op’s success is a reflection of your values, supporting local producers, being stewards of our environment, and lifting up our neighbors in need. Thank you for making BCC not just a store, but a true cornerstone of the community where cooperation and compassion thrive. In this season of warmth and hospitality, may we continue to be that friendly hand and welcoming hearth for one another. See you in the aisles!
-D
Doug Johnson
BCC General Manager
doug@belfast.coop
Everyone is welcome to shop at the Co-op; it is our mission and our pleasure to bring locally-sourced, reasonably priced, organic and natural products to all.
Owned by you. Food for all.
