page_title: British co-operative movement
section_title: Consumers' co-operatives (retail and food)
hierarchical_section_title: British co-operative movement / Consumers' co-operatives (retail and food)
caption_attribution_description: Grosmont, near Whitby ... Co - op and post office.
context_page_description: The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844, though the history of co-operation in Britain can be traced back to before 1800. The British co-operative movement is most commonly associated with The Co-operative brand which has been adopted by several large consumers' co-operative societies; however, there are many thousands of registered co-operative businesses operating in the UK. Alongside these consumers' co-operatives, there exist many prominent agricultural co-operatives, co-operative housing providers, health and social care cooperatives, cooperative schools, retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.
  Co-operatives UK is the central membership organisation for co-operative enterprise throughout the UK. This is a co-operative of co-operatives: a co-operative federation.
context_section_description: The largest and most recognised part of the UK movement are the many consumers' co-operatives. They are co-operative businesses run for the benefit of their customer members. Of these co-operatives, the largest sector is food retailing, though they have a significant presence in other sectors such as travel agencies and funeral directors. 
  The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen a gradual exit by these businesses from the non-food retailing market.
  Many co-operatives (by convention known as co-operative societies) started out in a single village, town or city usually with just a single store. Here, members would be customers of the society's trading location and the society would reward these members with a proportion of any profits based on that member's spending with the society, or a dividend. This is a fundamental difference between a co-operative and a joint stock company. 
  Most societies were small, and by 1900, there were 1,439 co-operatives covering virtually every area of the UK.
  Gradually, many societies expanded by opening further stores or by merging with a neighbouring society. Today, there is one dominant, national society, The Co-operative Group, and a number of large regional co-operative societies such as Central England Co-operative, the Midcounties Co-operative and Scotmid. Many of these large co-operative societies have businesses in a number of sectors, are led by their values principles and owned by their members. Membership is open to everyone and alongside being democratically involved in the decision making of the societies, every year members receive a share of the profits based on the amount made in profits that year and the how much they had spent with any of its businesses. In the case of The Co-operative Group, the society has over four million members and 3,600 trading outlets for its family of business which comprises groceries, insurance, funerals, legal services and health. In contrast to these large regional or national societies, some have remained with a single store such as Shepley Co-op, Grosmont Co-op, Coniston Co-op and Allendale Co-op.
  The decline, through mergers, of single shop co-operatives, was reversed by two trends.  
  Firstly, around 170 community owned shops were established since 1979, many of which are co-operatives.
  Secondly, the United States food co-operative movement was replicated in the UK: some of the independent food co-operatives established in the late 20th and early 21st centuries operate shops.
caption: The Grosmont Co-operative Society remains an independent co-op store.
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