Because ShopRite's parent cooperative, Wakefern Food Corp., is a private, retailer-owned organization rather than a standard publicly traded corporation on a major stock exchange, its financial earnings and patronage dividends are distributed privately to its independent member-owners based on cooperative patronage volumes rather than public per-share stock market dividend yields. (Note: For publicly traded entities like South Africa's Shoprite Holdings, dividend payouts are determined periodically by corporate earnings performance and declared in local currency).