> Helping To Make Changes For The Better
> Fair Trade - Striving For Decent Standards For All
> Ethical Trading - Helping Waged Workers Get Better Conditions
> Honest Labelling
> Responsible Retailing
> Supporting Farmers & Animal Welfare
> Supporting Alternative Farming Practices
> Midlands Co-op Raises £125,000 for Macmillan Cancer Relief
> Environmentally Friendly Funeral Services
> The Healthy Option For Children
> Milk Heroes

HELPING TO MAKE CHANGES FOR THE BETTER

Unlike the other retailers, the Co-op is involved in much more than selling products in stores.

As a consumer owned organisation, the Co-op is independent of the Stock Exchange and big financial investors who could exert influence. Our organisation is based on a set of co-operative values and principles such as honesty, openness, self-help, self-responsibility and caring for others, which enable us to support a diverse range of charities and community initiatives.

FAIR TRADE - STRIVING FOR DECENT STANDARDS FOR ALL

It simply isn't necessary for so many people in the world to live in poverty or work in unacceptable conditions. At the Co-op, Fair Trade was introduced to ensure a better deal for growers and small scale producers in developing countries. These people have often found that because of their remoteness or size of their operation they are unable to get a fair price for their products and are vulnerable to scrupulous international traders.

Fair Trade ensures the money paid for the products goes to the farmers and producers themselves, who often support local social welfare and education and can pre-purchase new crops without getting into insupportable debt.

• The Co-op was the first major retailer to sell Fair Trade products and now stocks tea, coffee, chocolate and wine.
• The Co-op sells more Fair Trade products than any other retailer.
• The Co-op launched Co-op Fair Trade Roast and Ground Coffee when depressed world prices were forcing some Colombian coffee growers to produce cocoa and cocaine rather than coffee beans.

ETHICAL TRADING - HELPING WAGED WORKERS GET BETTER CONDITIONS

The Co-op is helping to increase awareness of the exploitation of workers in developing countries and strives to improve their human rights, working conditions and safety standards.

• A good example of this is Co-op 99 Tea. Since 1997 all plantations supplying leaves for Co-op 99 Tea are monitored to ensure they provide their employees with good, safe working and living conditions.

HONEST LABELLING

At the Co-op, we believe we provide more information on our product packaging than anyone else and that you have a right to know about the products you buy. We use plain language instead of the official Latin alternatives in the ingredients and go beyond the legal minimum.

The Co-op also insures that product descriptions or photographs are not misleading in any way.

• The Co-op is the only grocery retailer who will tell you who makes our own brand products.
• The Co-op has the most stringent non-animal testing policy of all grocery retailers and has campaigned for over 10 years against animal testing for cosmetic and non-essential purposes, providing support for the British Union in the Abolition of Vivisection and Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments. Look for the cruelty free symbol on Co-op brand toiletries and cleaning products that is approved by leading animal welfare organisations.
• The Co-op have recently become the first organisation in the UK to develop Braille on medicine packaging for the visually impaired.

RESPONSIBLE RETAILING

In 1995, the Co-op launched its responsible retailing campaign after we commissioned a Gallup survey of over 30,000 people, that highlighted parental concern about the impact of TV advertising of fatty, sugary and salty foods on children's diets. As a result, the Co-op committed itself to a voluntary ban on advertising during children's television hours and in an attempt to reduce 'pester power' by removing cartoon characters from all packaging of all Co-op brand products which are high in fat, sugar or salt.

• Did you know that the recipe ideas we feature on Co-op own brand products are specially created to be made without adding salt and rely on herbs and spices to help bring out the flavours of the other ingredients?
• The Co-op was the first retailer to state the approximate amount of salt in a product on its packaging and remain the only retailer to clearly do so on the front of the pack. This initiative is to help reduce the incidence of high blood pressure, strokes, heart disease and stomach cancer which are associated with the amount of sodium in the diet.
• The Co-op has consistently led the way in the responsible retailing of suncare products. Initiatives such as low pricing of even the highest protection factors, often used by children, have made sensible suncare more affordable. After all, why should the more vulnerable pay more?

SUPPORTING FARMERS & ANIMAL WELFARE

As the country's biggest farmer, the Co-op is committed to supporting the farming community of the UK and good food production practices. Wherever possible, all meat and poultry sold in our stores is brought from UK farms and we guarantee the highest standards of animal rearing.

• The Co-op was the first to ban the use of stalls and tethers when rearing pigs. This will not be required by law until 2005.
• The Co-op banned the use of animal by-products and pigswill in animal feed for fresh meat and poultry over 5 years before the government introduced this as a law.
• The Co-op was the first major retailer to support the RSPCA's farm animal welfare standards by selling a range of Freedom Food, where you can be confident that the animals have been reared, handled, transported and slaughtered to the highest standards.

SUPPORTING ALTERNATIVE FARMING PRACTICES

The Co-op has banned the use of 20 pesticides which can be legally used on products we sell. We have done this because of our concerns on their effect on human health. Our aim is for 20% of food consumed in the UK to be organically produced by 2010.

MIDLANDS CO-OP RAISES £125,000 FOR MACMILLAN CANCER RELIEF

Staffs and customers of Midlands Co-op have raised a fantastic £125,000 for Macmillan Cancer Relief in the last 18 months with a range of sponsored activities.

The highlight of these events was when over thirty employees of Midlands Co-op Foodstore in Hall Croft, Shepshed raised a fantastic £2,289 by organising a sponsored walk dressed as chickens!

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY FUNERAL SERVICES

Midlands Co-op is offering the choice of bamboo environmentally friendly coffins as an alternative to the traditional methods of burial. Pandas do not eat this species of bamboo and all bamboo used in the manufacture of this coffin is cultivated on Chinese Government plantations where employees have exemplary working conditions.

This coffin is produced as environmentally friendly as possible, finished only with a non-toxic salt solution to prevent woodworm.

Supplied with a bamboo headrest and a liner of a waterproof, biodegradable heavy duty cotton. Handles are also produced from bamboo.

THE HEALTHY OPTION FOR CHILDREN

Midlands Co-op Dairy deliver free 1/3rd pint milk cartons to 11,500 nursery children in the Birmingham area, providing a healthy breaktime option to fizzy drinks.

MILK HEROES

This valuable award was launched in September 2001, to reward the contribution of dairy staff to their local community. Awards have been presented for alerting a sleeping family of a gas leak, saving a school from an arson attack and attending to an elderly customer who had had a fall.