Co-op Food

List of UK Co-operatives with Food Retail Operations

Though often considered to be one supermarket business, The Co-operative Food is a network of supermarkets and convenience shops owned and operated by over 15 independent co-operative societies, many of which have adopted the 2008 version of The Co-operative brand. In total there are over 4,000 co-operative food shops in the UK, more outlets than any other grocer. The table below indicates how many food shops each co-operative society operates.

Shop numbers for year 2016-2017: ^{[3] [4] [5]}

Shop numbers for the year 2015-16: ^{[6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]} Shop numbers for the year 2014-15 ^{[13] [14] [15]}

Ethical Trading Initiatives

The Co-operative Food is widely recognised for its commitment to responsible and ethical trading, particularly for championing fairtrade in the UK.^[16] These commitments and its mutual structure led to The Co-operative Food being awarded Ethical Consumer Magazine's 'Best Buy' status in 2011 and 2014.^[17] This section only refers to sourcing initiatives for food sold through the Co-operative Retail Trading Group and more information on the commitments of individual co-operative societies can be found on their respective pages.

The Co-operative Food was the first major UK retailer to stock Fairtrade products and was the first UK supermarket to sell fairtrade coffee (1992), bananas (2000), own-brand chocolate (2000), own-brand wine (2001), sugar (2005) and blueberries (2010).^[16] Since then, all own brand block chocolate (2002), coffee (2003), sugar (2008), bananas (2012), winter blueberries (2012) has been converted to fairtrade. The Co-operative Food is also the largest UK retailer of fairly traded wine and has the largest range of fairtrade products in the UK. The business has also been recognised for working with many co-operative and smallholder farmers, including providing investment funding to enable farming co-operatives who supply them to convert to fairtrade certification. In 2014 its fairtrade sales were £133m.^[18][19]

The Co-operative Food is one of the leading retailers of responsible fish in the UK having launched its Responsible Fish Sourcing Policy in 2008 after commissioning research in association with NGOs, academics and its suppliers. The Co-operative Food was commended by the Marine Conservation Society with a 'gold award' (2011) and a 'silver award' (2013) and, for its sourcing policy, The Co-operative was one of five organisations accredited with the 2010 Seafood Champion Award.^[20] Their fish sourcing policy specifies that no fish sold by The Co-op can be found on the Marine Stewardship Council's 'Fish To Avoid' list, all own brand tuna must be pole and line caught and own brand farmed salmon is certified by the RSPCA. In 2015 the co-op became one of the first retails to join the 'Ocean Disclosure Project' which requires the business to report transparently on the geographic locations, fishing methods and sustainability characteristics of all of the fisheries from which they source.^[21][22] This move confirmed an ongoing commitment by The Co-operative Food in promoting transparent and responsible fishing in the UK.

All Co-operative own-brand health, beauty and household products are marked with an "approved by BUAV" rabbit symbol to show that neither the product nor its ingredients have been tested on animals. This has been the case since 1985 and 1997 for toiletry and household products respectively.^[23]

For a number of years The Co-operative Food has sourced approximately 98% of its electricity from renewable sources,^[23] of which 12% they generate themselves and another proportion is sourced from community energy projects supported by 'The Co-operative Enterprise Hub'.^[24]

The Co-operative Food donates money from the sale of bottled water and carrier bags to various charitable causes with over £5m awarded since the project started. Projects which have been funded included clean water projects in Africa and emergency funding for the 2015 DEC Nepal Earthquake appeal.^[25]

A strong British sourcing policy has been central to The Co-operative Food for a number of years. In 2014, all fresh beef, butter, cheese, chicken, duck, eggs, ham, milk, meat pie fillings, meat sandwich fillings, pork, turkey, sausages and salmon were sourced from within the UK.^[26] The business has pledged that all in season potatoes, carrots, cabbage, swede, onions, parsnips and lamb will be British by 2018.^[27]

Branding

A Co-op branch at the University of Reading's Whiteknights Campus, bearing the revived 1968 'Cloverleaf' branding.

The Co-operative Food brand is a part of the larger national The Co-operative brand which was last updated in 2008. According to Catherine Charnock of Co-operative Brands Ltd., The Co-operative Food was given a green identifying colour distinguishing it from other co-operative business sectors (such as pharmacy, banking, travel and funerals) and from the previous blue livery.^[28]

In May 2016, the company received a complete re-brand, reviving the original blue 1968 Co-op 'Cloverleaf' design.^[29]

Many Co-op Food shops use the in-shop "Co-op Radio" which is produced and broadcast by Mood Media^[30] Since 2015, Scotmid has provided its own 'in-shop radio'^[31] on behalf of The Co-operative Group.

Distribution

Co-op Food Supply Chain Logistics is the distribution business of The Co-operative Group that manages the national and international distribution of goods on behalf of all the food retailing co-operative societies who are members of the Co-operative Retail Trading Group. The Co-operative Group manages all of its own logistics and virtually all of its delivery operations, although several distribution centres use 3rd party logistics partners to manage their transport operations. Supply Chain Logistics Head Office is co-located at the Birtley Distribution Centre.

Co-op Food Supply Chain Logistics has 8 regional composite distribution centres and 3 smaller satellite depots supporting the larger CDCs. The Coventry-based National Distribution Centre (NDC) supplies all distribution centres direct, with slow moving lines.

Product Awards

Co-op Food have won a number of awards since its incarnation and a selection of them are listed below:

^[33]