Midcounties Co-operative

The Midcounties Co-operative is one of the largest independent food retailers in the country with 309 stores, operating as Your Coop Food

In 2018 the Midcounties Co-operative completed a review of its Healthcare business selling 21 of its 29 pharmacies branches to focus on its digital healthcare offering. The pharmacy group controls the cooppharmacy.coop website and in 2013 launched a new Online Doctor service providing online medical care and prescriptions direct to customers' homes.

The Midcounties Co-operative, which operated as The Co-operative Funeralcare, provided 85 funeral homes and three masonry sites. The group had over 150 years' experience in providing funeral care to its local communities. After a business review in 2021, the majority of funeral homes were transferred to Central England Co-operative.[10]

The Midcounties Co-operative operates 60 travel branches across Midcounties' trading area and controls the Cooptravel.co.uk and Co-operativeski.co.uk websites. The Midcounties Co-operative travel business is branded "Your Coop Travel (Part of the Midcounties Co-operative)". It is distinct from the former business The Co-operative Travel which was owned and operated as a joint venture by Thomas Cook, The Co-operative Group and Central England Co-operative. That business was rebranded to the Thomas Cook name during 2017–18, its branches subsequently being acquired by Hays Travel upon the liquidation of Thomas Cook.

In 2020 the Midcounties travel business acquired 16 travel branches and employees from the Central England Co-operative.[11]

In 2002, the Society became the first UK co-operative to open a children's day care facility. Your Coop Childcare now operates 44 nurseries across the UK. The acquisition of the Buffer Bear nursery chain in 2010 saw its Childcare business begin to trade nationally, with nurseries spanning from Newcastle to Southampton.

In 2019, Co-operative Flexible Benefits had gross sales of £25 million, however, the childcare voucher scheme which it operated was closed to new entrants in October 2018. As a result, the childcare voucher business is now being wound down, the process will take around three years. To replace it, the Society is developing a Reward and Recognition offer for employers to promote high performance, motivation and engagement.

In 2016/17, The Midcounties Co-operative operated 55 post offices with gross sales of £2.9 million.

On 28 April 2018 the members of The Phone Co-op, previously an independent society operating in B2B & B2C ethical telecoms,student housing and community energy, voted to transfer its engagements to and merge memberships with Midcounties. A confirmatory vote held after the Midcounties AGM on 12 May 2018 was passed,[12] allowing Midcounties to thus broaden its utilities offer. The merger took place on 1 June 2018, with members of The Phone Co-op joining Midcounties membership.[13] After 20 Years of near continous surplus generating growth, in 2018/19 The Phone Co-op had gross sales of £6.7 million but faced issues with generating organic sales growth, a rapidly changing market place and changes to its affinity schemes brought about by EU Data protection legislation which prevented Charities, Community Groups, Football Clubs etc from cross selling phone co-op product lines with a 8% revenue share.

Midcounties Co-operative also has an agreement with Octopus Group to market and distribute energy products under the Co-op Energy brand, following the sale of its interest in the Co-op Energy supply business to Octopus Energy in 2019. A joint venture also targets investment in new community energy projects, provides practical support to community groups and aims to increase the volume of energy purchased from community schemes; thereby encouraging more small-scale generation across the UK.[14][15]

The Midcounties Co-operative's energy business, The Co-operative Energy, supplies gas and electricity to UK homes. The business was established in 2010, launching as a lately internet based provider but was largely unknown. criticised by customers in 2015 after a failed IT upgrade to its online customer service and billing system caused numerous problems and a large backlog in dealing with issues. In the first quarter of 2015 it was the fourth most complained about utility company, measured in complaints per thousand customers.[18] In subsequent quarters it became the second worst and then the worst for the period July–September according to the official Energy Ombudsman.[19][20] By the end of 2016 these issues had been resolved and the company was paying out £1.8 million in compensation to customers.[21]

Midcounties Co-operative announced the sale of its energy supply business, including Flow Energy, GB Energy and Co-op Energy, to Octopus Group for an undisclosed sum in August 2019. Customers were transferred to Octopus Energy, while Midcounties will continue to market and distribute energy products under the Co-op Energy brand.[14]

The society briefly ran a service offering newspaper delivery. It's grocery stores continue to sell newspapers but the traditional newsagent home delivery business was exited.

Midcounties exited Healthcare in 2023.

The society operated a single store, with a small dedicated team, for approximately twenty years.

After a strategic review, Midcounties exited the Funeral Director market, selling its two depots, its pre-payment service and the majority of its outlets to a sister society via a transfer of engagements. While the decisions made where commercial, the co-operative character of the transaction meant the regulator required the final transfer of engagements to be voted through by members at two special meetings.

Traditional staffed counters inside co-op premises for members to conduct withdrawals and subscriptions into their share accounts (common when few people had bank accounts) have been withdrawn. The service remains accessible via post at the head office, where a team of 4 administer account books and certificates. Subscriptions are by application only and at the members risk.

The Midcounties Co-operative has a strong commitment to investing in the communities in which it trades through responsible trading, local sourcing, community projects and charitable work. To this end the co-op invested 17.6% of its 2013–2014 pre-tax profits (£1.8m) into the communities in which it trades. This figure is significantly higher than the average value for large UK co-ops (6.9%) or other rival supermarkets (2.4%).[24] In 2014 the society provided support for over 10,000 community groups and encouraged colleagues to volunteer over 23,500 hours to support local communities.[25]

The co-op supports 40 local foodbanks and in 2014 enabled 10,000 products to be donated from its food stores.

The society firmly believes that community retailers should pay all taxes which are due and should not engage in aggressive artificial tax avoidance. In 2013 the society set out its tax charter and in 2014 became one of the first three businesses in the UK to be awarded the Fair Tax Mark.[26] This certification shows that the business is transparent about its tax affairs and does not engage in tax avoidance.

Energy consumption across the business is down by 10% since 2009 and own brand packaging is down by 39% since 2006. The society recycles over 80% of its waste (2014) with food waste being converted into renewable energy. All electricity used by the business comes from renewable sources.

In contrast to this, and the group's stated environmental values, the Co-operative Energy business, run by The Midcounties Co-operative, purchases only 4% of its electricity from renewable sources. It also has a relatively large portion of coal within its main fuel mix.

The co-op provided £100,000 of support for co-operative development though its 'Co-operative Futures' project. In 2014, 83 co-operatives were advised or supported by Co-operative Futures and 17 new registrations of co-operatives were completed. Its total commitment to supporting the growth of co-operatives in 2014 was £280,000.[25]