What we changed, paid for and chose to keep reviewing

In early 2022, our member feedback included repeated frustration about grocery offers that required larger purchases or careful timing. The commercial team could point to attractive advertised prices, but store colleagues were spending time explaining conditions. I asked for a twelve-store trial covering thirty-six frequently purchased essentials, with a simpler price presentation and fewer promotional changes over six months. We selected products with sufficient supply continuity to make availability a serious part of the test.

The buying team opposed removing mechanics that attracted supplier support. Finance also asked whether we were transferring an unmeasured benefit to customers while accepting a measurable reduction in income. Those were legitimate objections. I approved the trial with a C$420,000 reduction in supplier promotion funding explicitly included in the comparison. We did not assume that additional sales would replace it, and we retained ordinary quality and purchasing controls.

Across the defined basket and stores, unit sales rose 6.2% against the preceding comparable period. On-shelf availability improved from 94.1% to 96.3% in the sampled checks. Neither number established causation: buying patterns and supply conditions also changed during the period. The result did show that the operational team could sustain the simpler offer without the availability deterioration some colleagues had expected. The lost funding remained a cost of the choice.

We continued the basket in those stores while reviewing product selection before any broader adoption. I rejected a proposed announcement describing the trial as a complete solution to affordability. Thirty-six items cannot stand for a household's whole food budget. The useful outcome was narrower: a price promise customers could understand, with its commercial cost and its availability measured together. Store managers also reported fewer explanations about the selected offers, but we had not measured that consistently enough to publish a quantified saving.

I would involve store colleagues in defining the basket before announcing a price promise, especially where pack sizes or substitutions could make an apparently clear commitment difficult to honour.

During 2023, eighteen stores tested an earlier roster publication routine and tighter limits on management-initiated late changes. We had heard from colleagues who could not arrange transport or family commitments until their shifts were confirmed. Operations managers argued that demand variation and absences made a firmer promise impractical. I did not dismiss that experience; I asked them to distinguish unavoidable events from changes caused by late promotional plans, delayed approvals or optimistic staffing assumptions.

We established a six-month comparison and recorded shifts altered with fewer than seven days remaining before the shift. Colleague-requested swaps were logged separately. The people team helped managers prepare alternatives, while finance included the extra cover needed to avoid using last-minute changes as the default adjustment. I accepted a higher cost envelope for the trial rather than promising that better scheduling would immediately pay for itself.

The share of scheduled shifts changed at short notice fell from 23% to 9%. Labour cost per trading hour rose 2.4%. Store leaders wanted to offset that increase against an apparent improvement in retention, but the observation period and differences between branches did not support a clean attribution. We therefore kept retention out of the claimed financial result. The reported outcome remained a more predictable roster at a visible additional cost.

The hardest discussions concerned weeks when trading was weaker than forecast. Maintaining published hours felt uncomfortable when the sales line disappointed. I held the trial's commitment and asked the team to improve the next forecast rather than retrospectively make colleagues absorb the error. We later incorporated the routine into those stores' operating plans, with explicit review of exceptions. I would not claim that the arrangement suits every format unchanged. It demonstrated that roster instability was partly a management choice, and that we could price a different choice honestly.

Looking back, I would examine the reasons managers revise published rosters before choosing a publication deadline, so the policy addresses avoidable changes rather than merely exposing them sooner.

In 2024, we reviewed produce ordering at ten stores where large display quantities were contributing to unsold stock. Department managers were reluctant to reduce orders because a full display signalled freshness and choice. Buyers also preferred predictable larger orders. I asked the operating and commercial teams to test smaller, more frequent ordering decisions within existing delivery arrangements, accompanied by clearer daily review of stock age and markdown timing.

The trial ran for twenty weeks. We measured discarded produce by purchase value as a share of produce purchases, keeping the valuation method stable. The ratio fell from 6.8% to 4.9% across the participating departments. At the same time, sampled availability fell from 95.2% to 94.7%. That deterioration was small in percentage points but mattered: a customer who could not find a usual item did not experience a success merely because our waste report improved.

Several colleagues wanted to extend the ordering change immediately because the waste figure was favourable. I required a second review of the affected products and trading periods before expansion. We restored some display and order quantities where the smaller buffer was repeatedly insufficient, accepting that this would reduce part of the apparent gain. Quality decisions remained with the responsible teams; the programme did not instruct staff to retain products beyond approved handling standards.

The exercise changed our management discussion. Waste and availability appeared together in the departmental review, and the cost of extra attention was recognised in staffing plans. We did not publish a net profit claim because the trial had not consistently isolated additional handling time. I supported continuation as a measured operating improvement, not an assurance that every department should minimise stock in the same way. The most useful disagreement came from store colleagues who reminded us that a neat reduction in disposal could also be evidence of an understocked shop.

I would agree how availability is observed alongside waste before starting the next trial, giving both sides of the fresh-food decision an equal place in the evidence.

Our online grocery service had grown quickly, and the sales presentation encouraged us to celebrate the number of households reached. In 2024, I asked for an order-level view at eight stores, separating product contribution from picking and last-mile delivery costs. The review showed an average direct loss of C$7.10 per fulfilled order in the measured cohort. Shared head-office and store occupancy costs were excluded, so the figure was not a fully allocated profit measure.

The digital team proposed pursuing more volume to improve route density. Store operations pointed out that additional picking was competing with replenishment at busy times. Member representatives were concerned about households at the edge of the service area, some of whom valued delivery precisely because reaching a store was difficult. I chose to reduce the radius and consolidate delivery windows while keeping collection available where the store could support it.

Over the following twelve weeks, weekly fulfilled orders in the cohort fell by 14%. The average direct loss narrowed to C$2.80 per order under the same cost definition. We did not call that profitability, and the smaller radius did not solve the service needs of every affected household. Customer communications explained the change before it took effect, and colleagues were briefed to discuss the remaining options without promising exceptions they could not deliver.

I reported the lost reach beside the improved economics. A proposal to describe the change as an enhanced customer proposition did not survive that review. It was a narrower service with a more manageable loss, and the board needed to decide whether the remaining support was justified. We continued reviewing density and capacity within the revised area. The case reinforced my view that a growth chart is not enough to determine whether a grocery service has a sustainable place in the business.

I would require a costed account of delivery capacity before approving another customer promise, including the demand conditions under which the proposition would need to change.

In 2025, one of our smaller stores faced a lease decision and recurring operating losses. It served a neighbourhood with a substantial older membership, but its range and opening hours had been planned as though it were a larger branch. The property team favoured closure; several elected representatives wanted the existing offer preserved. I asked for a third option built around a smaller assortment, reduced late-evening hours and necessary maintenance rather than a full refit.

The board received three alternatives with five-year cash assumptions. I did not present the smaller format as a compromise that made everybody whole. It required C$1.6 million in maintenance and conversion spending, removed some specialist lines and reduced twelve weekly trading hours. Colleagues' contractual arrangements were handled through the responsible employment processes; we did not equate shorter opening with an automatic reduction in every person's hours. Member discussions focused on the practical consequences before the decision.

The board approved a two-year operating trial of the reduced format, with a review point before further capital was committed. During its first nine months, the store's operating loss narrowed from C$480,000 to C$190,000 compared with the corresponding prior period, before allocating central overhead. The conversion expenditure was separate and had not been recovered. Some shopping shifted to other branches, so the store comparison alone could not describe the cooperative-wide result.

We kept the store open, but I would not describe the decision as proof that every threatened branch can be saved. The outcome depended on this lease, this local demand and the board's willingness to support a defined residual loss. The valuable change was in the quality of the choice: members saw the range and hours they would lose, directors saw the ongoing support required, and managers had an offer they could actually operate. The two-year review remains part of the commitment.

For a similar store decision, I would explore a smaller operating format before the lease discussion narrows to closure or continuation on the existing terms.