The Kindersley Co-op, as well as Rosetown, and over two dozen other locations, recently became some of the top businesses in Saskatchewan.

The magazine SaskBusiness released their annual list of the Top 100 Companies in Saskatchewan for 2018. Kindersley & District Co-operative Association Limited has been ranked among Saskatchewan’s largest businesses, being placed at #69; nine spots higher from last year’s #78. Meanwhile, Rosetown’s Central Plains Co-operative Association Limited is sitting at #82.

While there’s nothing simple about running a business, applying for the Top 100 Companies is fairly straight forward, as Mario Bouvier, the General Manager for Kindersley co-op, explains.

“You have to be based out of Saskatchewan, with your main industry in sales.”

A staggering 26 co-op locations are included on this year’s list, which include communities like Weyburn, Estevan, Unity, Outlook, Humboldt, and many more. These local co-ops are joined on the list by Saskatoon-based Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL), which placed second in the rankings.

While the employees are the ones who make these locations work as well as they do, Bouvier knows who is truly to thank.

“I’d like to thank our members and customers for continuing to support us, and we take pride in sharing these results with our customers, as well as, we want to recognize all the extra effort our staff do, day in and day out.

What may have helped so many Co-op locations get on the list is the FCL providing $500,000 towards the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre's (Food Centre) expansion project. This will help more locally grown food to be processed at the Food Centre, and then sold at Co-op locations across not just the province, but all of Western Canada.

"Co-op has built strong relationships with ag producers and food production companies, working directly with them every day to deliver the local products that are valued by co-op members and customers," said Ron Healey, FCL's Vice-President of Ag and Consumer Business.

Today, there are more than 90 local Co-ops in Saskatchewan operating hundreds of food stores, home centres, gas bars, commercial cardlock facilities, agriculture centres and liquor outlets.