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Company type | Consumer Co-operative |
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Industry | Retail |
Founded | 1873 |
Headquarters | 1000 Lakeside North Harbour, Western Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3FE |
Area served | Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Sussex, Berkshire, Somerset, Surrey, Devon, Bristol, Kent and parts of Dorset and Wiltshire. |
Key people | Mark Ralf, Chair Mark Smith, Chief Executive |
Products | Grocer, Funeral director, Foodservice |
Revenue | £545.750 million (23/24) |
£-752,000 | |
Members | 172,625 (22/23) |
Number of employees | 4,523 (23/24) |
Website | thesouthernco-operative |
Southern Co-op (originally Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society Ltd, now officially The Southern Co-operative Limited) [1] is a regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom. The principal activities of the Society are food retailing, funeral homes, and cafes. It operates more than 300 convenience stores, funeral homes, and Starbucks coffee shops across the southern English counties of Berkshire, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, London, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire. Southern Co-op Society is owned by over 170,000 members who share in the business's profits and democratically control its operations. It was previously registered as an Industrial and Provident Society, but its status is now as a mutual society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. [1]
The business of Southern Co-op includes burial grounds in West Sussex, Dorset, and Cheshire, and a crematorium in Hampshire and Devon. Additionally, Southern Co-op supports franchisee stores that are members of Southern's Welcome convenience brand.
51,562 new Members joined Southern Co-op during 2023 - 24
Southern Co-op was formed in 1873 by dockyard workers who had transferred from Woolwich docks in east London to the Portsmouth dockyard. The workers had previously set up a successful Co-operative Society in Woolwich. When they arrived in Portsmouth, they decided to replicate a similar set-up there.[ citation needed ]
In December 1872, 30 people attended a public meeting and unanimously agreed to pay one shilling (12 old pence) for the establishment of a local Co-operative. After five months, the Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society's first shop opened in Charles Street on 9 May 1873.[ citation needed ]
The head office was previously located at Fareham in Hampshire until July 2011, when it moved to 1000 Lakeside, a business park in North Harbour, Portsmouth. [2]
In 2023, it marked its 150th anniversary with a special logo.
Registered in England and Wales under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, [1] Southern is a member of Co-operatives UK, the Co-operative Retail Trading Group and a corporate member of The Co-operative Group.
Southern Co-op operates around 200 Co-op branded convenience stores, covering Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Sussex, Berkshire, Somerset, Surrey, Devon, Bristol, Kent and parts of Dorset and Wiltshire.[ citation needed ]
Southern Co-op owns the 'Welcome' convenience store franchise,with 72 Stores open at the end of 2023. During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, 7 new stores opened in Westhoughton, Dewsbury, Bournemouth, Ripon, Wakefield, Tower Bridge and Wirral.
Cobra Coffee, a Southern Co-op subsidiary, is one of the largest Starbucks franchisees in the UK and grew from 63 to 71 stores in the 2023-2024 fiscal year under license from Starbucks across the south of England.
Southern Co-op operated 59 funeral homes across the south of England, closing one in 2023. Additionally, they operate 4 burial grounds and 2 crematoriums. [3]
Portsmouth is a port city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent. This means Portsmouth is the only English city not located primarily on the mainland. Located 74 miles (119 km) south-west of London, 50 miles (80 km) west of Brighton and Hove, and 22 miles (35 km) south-east of Southampton; Portsmouth is part of the South Hampshire conurbation. It is the most densely populated city in the United Kingdom, with a population last recorded at 208,100.
A combe can refer either to a steep, narrow valley, or to a small valley or large hollow on the side of a hill; in any case, it is often understood simply to mean a small valley through which a watercourse does not run. The word "combe" derives from Old English cumb, of the same meaning, and is unrelated to the English word "comb". It derives ultimately from the same Brythonic source as the Welsh cwm, which has the same meaning. Today, the word is used mostly in reference to the combes of southern and southwestern England.
Local Plus was the trading name of a group of sixty four convenience stores trading in the South West of England, owned by Conveco Ltd, which was formed when three Alldays Regional Development companies were bought in a management buyout in 2001. In May 2004, the group was subsequently brought by the Co-operative Group.
The Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op and formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society, is a British consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses, including grocery retail and wholesale, legal services, funerals and insurance, and social enterprise.
The Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (RACS) was a large consumer co-operative based in south east London, England. The co-operative took its name from the Royal Arsenal munitions works in Woolwich and its motto was: "Each for all and all for each". In 1985 it merged into the national Co-operative Wholesale Society.
Co-operative Retail Services was the second-largest consumer co-operative society in the United Kingdom. In 2000, it was dissolved by its members, merging with the larger Co-operative Wholesale Society, to form the Co-operative Group (CWS) Ltd.
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7,000 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 (621), co-operative housing providers (619), health and social care cooperatives (111), cooperative schools (834), retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIWFRS) is the statutory fire and rescue service for the county of Hampshire, including the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth, and the county of the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. The service was formed on 1 April 2021 from the merger of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service. The service's chief fire officer is Neil Odin.
Lothian, Borders & Angus Co-operative Society Limited , founded in 1839 in the Scottish Borders, was the oldest independent consumer co-operative in Scotland until it merged with The Co-operative Group in December 2008. It operated over 50 food stores in the south and east, as well as some other retail businesses, and funeral services. At the time of the merger, Lothian Co-op was owned by 65,000 consumer members on a one member one vote basis.
Lincolnshire Co-op is an independent consumer co-operative which operates in Lincolnshire, and surrounding counties. The society has over 220 outlets with its principal trading activity being its food stores, funeral homes, florist and crematorium, travel agencies, post offices and pharmacies. The Society is owned by over 295,000 members holding Lincolnshire Co-op dividend cards, equal to approximately one quarter of the population of Greater Lincolnshire. The society also owns Gadsby's bakery which is based in Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
Funeral Services Limited, trading as Co-op Funeralcare, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Co-operative Group, based in Manchester, which operates over 1,000 funeral homes and is the largest funeral director in the United Kingdom, accounting for 16.5% of the "at need" funeral market during 2016. Co-op Funeralcare is a member of the National Association of Funeral Directors and is also Funeral Planning Authority registered.
Central England Co-operative, trading as Central Co-op, is a regional consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom, based in Lichfield and which trades from over 400 sites across the English Midlands and East Anglia. The business is owned and democratically controlled by its members who can stand for election to the board and who also share in the society's profits. A proportion of the profits of the business are also invested in local community groups through its community dividend grants programme and its more than 60 member classes.
The Upper Greensand Formation is a Cretaceous formation of Albian to Cenomanian in age, found within the Wessex Basin and parts of the Weald Basin in southern England. It overlies the Gault Clay and underlies the Chalk Group. It varies in thickness from zero to 75 m. It is predominantly a glauconitic fine-grained sandstone, locally becoming silty. Fragmentary dinosaur remains, such as those assigned to Iuticosaurus, have been recovered from this formation. It has been quarried as a building stone from Roman times, and used in London and the area of its outcrop from Devon to East Sussex.