City Market has laid off 12 employees as the iconic Burlington co-op continues to struggle with declining sales, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
The decision was made after months of review as part of a “restructuring” following 18 months of dropping sales “driven by local and national inflationary pressures and challenges affecting the downtown business climate,” Cheray MacFarland said in a statement.
The member-owned co-op lost $1.2 million in fiscal year 2025 and has been in the red for eight consecutive years, according to its annual reports. The losses have coincided with the 2017 opening of a new store in Burlington’s South End to complement the flagship location downtown. Its financial statements show operating expenses also spiked in 2025.
Sales at the second store increased by 9 percent last year, while they dropped 7 percent downtown. The latter location has dealt with ongoing concerns around shoplifting and other safety issues, prompting the co-op to close its indoor café over the winter for a second consecutive year. MacFarland has previously said the store has “multiple security incidents almost daily at this point,” and it was forced to close for a day last month after a shoplifting incident led to the assault of four people, a deployed fire extinguisher and broken glass.
MacFarland said in a statement on Thursday that market leadership evaluated “multiple options” before deciding to eliminate the employees. She did not clarify how the layoffs were distributed across the two stores, or how much money the layoffs were expected to save, only that the changes would “improve operational efficiency.”
“We understand this is a difficult moment for our organization and the people affected,” John Tashiro, City Market’s general manager, said in the statement. “These decisions were not made lightly, and our focus remains on ensuring that City Market, Onion River Co-op can continue serving our community in a sustainable way.”
As of June 2025, the co-op employed 253 people and had 12,232 members — down from a post-pandemic peak of 12,569 members in fiscal year 2023.
Last year’s losses were more than double the figure in 2024, when the co-op was $468,061 in the red.
