Impacts to our Trading & Cowley Centre Enterprise Hub Launch

This week I would like to start with an update on a few of our trading areas and how they have been impacted following distribution and shortage issues raised in the media.

Utilities

You’ll have seen from the news over the last few days concerning the gas shortages and rising energy prices. That has led to some smaller energy companies going out of business; and a lot of press speculation about the security of many others.

As you know, our Board took the decision in 2019 to partner with Octopus Energy. That decision meant that Your Co-op Energy customers would have the advantage of using Octopus technology and customer service, whilst enabling us to concentrate on serving our members with a truly green offering, and developing relationships with community power generators. That’s worked really well for us, with Your Co-op Energy offering a real point of difference for our members.

The decision was also good in that it meant that the financial risk to the Society was removed, as Octopus would take responsibility for forecasting future energy prices and buying that volume. We are not involved in that aspect. Whilst I would expect to see a lot of consolidation in the Energy market over the coming weeks and months, we’ve been reassured that Octopus have a strong and healthy financial position, and crucially have taken a responsible position in purchasing energy requirements a long way in advance and pricing accordingly.             

It’s also worth mentioning that the Society clearly uses a lot of energy in our day to day operations. Again, in common with many businesses we purchase our requirements months in advance – ensuring that we both know what the price will be, as well as having been able to take advantage of lower prices. Clearly, I can’t say for certain what will happen to energy prices going forward but it does feel as though the right steps have been taken in the past to ensure security for both the Society as well as Your Co-op Energy customers.

Food

We continue to experience challenges with the supply of products in some of our Food stores. As you will have read in the news. This is a complex issue with many different causes from shortages of drivers, raw materials, the impact of COVID on resources and other contributing factors. We continue to work with The Co-op Group, who supply the majority of what we sell and are supplementing this with support from our local suppliers as well as making representation to the Government about what support the industry requires as a whole. There is no quick fix at the moment, so it will take some time for a full recovery in our operations; something which our Members and customers will understand in the current climate. Going forward we are working hard to ensure that our store teams have timely communications, so they can help manage the questions that arise in-store.

Travel

Finishing on a positive, in the last week, we have had two Government announcements around Travel restrictions; one on the intention to reduce the UK’s traffic light system to just a small Red list (with no Amber or Green categories) as well as the USA’s intention to lift their own travel ban for double-jabbed travellers to the States. As expected, this has had a knock-on effect, with travel sales increasing at a rate of +41% from Saturday-Monday compared to the same period in the previous week. Many of these were for last-minute holidays away with a surge of bookings for October and the busy Christmas period. With many of us looking forward to that next trip away, why not take advantage of your colleague discount this weekend and speak to one of our helpful travel experts? Click here for more information.

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