The Midcounties Co-operative is the UK’s 4th largest co-operative. It is owned locally by its customers and staff and has 216,000 members. It has seven trading groups: food, travel, funeral, motor, pharmacy, childcare and property. It has an annual turnover of £558m and employs 6,337 staff. It trades in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands.
Midcounties Co-operative serves more rural communities than any other retailer, with 47 of its 147 stores serving rural locations and many others in market towns. It has expanded its rural stores network through acquisition, development and store size expansion at a time when the number of rural retail outlets has continued to fall.
Trading in so many rural locations, it knows the challenges facing rural communities and recognises that providing support to tackle these issues will ensure the success of its own stores.
Midcounties has developed the most comprehensive support programme of any UK retailer to enable communities to take control of their own store through the creation of community-owned village shops. This includes offering grants at the pre-start up stage when other funding sources may be limited.
Fixtures, fittings, and goods are provided at favourable terms and advice on product-ranging is given. Midcounties has shared training resources, which whilst providing staff training sessions, funds business advice for rural social enterprises.
Midcounties has also pioneered the local sourcing of food through its Local Harvest scheme. This work grew from rising customer and member concerns post foot & mouth, especially an increased feeling of the need for fairness to farmers and a growth of the desire to buy local food. Customer research showed 85% of customers support the idea of a local food scheme and it was in the top three concerns at the Active Member Conference.
Midcounties developed a scheme to meet this need and apply the principles of Fairtrade to local sourcing. By identifying small and developing growers and producers, the scheme gives them the opportunity to sell their products through Midcounties’ stores, directly to their own communities and the wider public. In some cases this has gone as far as to revitalise floundering, small, family-run businesses.
