KF (, "Co-operative Union") is a

federation A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

consumer co-operative A consumer cooperative is an business, enterprise owned by consumers and managed democracy, democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such cooperatives operate within the market economy independently of t ...

s in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and a retail group, with groceries as its core business.

History

KF was founded in 1899 by 41 local consumer co-operatives in order to support them with information and education of store managers and board members. Soon KF also became responsible for common procurement of goods. In the 1930s, KF expanded rapidly during the management of Albin Johansson, setting up various industries in order to support the co-operative grocery stores. From 1950 to 1970, KF was at the forefront of the Swedish retail trade by developing new and bigger store formats and it was one of the major business groups in Scandinavia. In the beginning of the 1990s, as a response to a financial crisis, KF decided to sell out all its industries and focus on retail trade only. Around the year 2000, KF formed the retail chain Coop Norden along with its Nordic co-operative counterparts, Danish FDB and Norwegian

Coop NKL Coop Norge is a Norwegian cooperative. It is owned by 117 local cooperatives with approximately 2 million members. The company has its headquarters in Oslo. History The first cooperative store in Norway was opened in the 1850s and, on 27 June ...

. In 2002, KF bought a 50% share in BOL Sweden from

Bertelsmann The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann (), is a German privately held company, private multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, ...

.Bertelsmann sells BOL operations.
''New Media Age.'' 28 Nov. 2002. Due to poor financial results in Coop Norden the owners decided to renationalize the operation of the stores in 2007. In July 2021, Coop was temporarily shut down by a ransomware attack on Kaseya software services.

Today

As of 2012, KF is a federation of 39 consumer co-operatives with more than 3.2 million members and a retail group with a net worth (ex. VAT) of SEK 37.3 billion. The grocery retail group, , stands for around 85 per cent of the sale with store brands like Coop Konsum, Coop Nära, Coop Extra, Stora Coop and

Coop Forum Coop is a chain of Consumers' co-operative, consumer co-operative owned grocery stores in Sweden, organised under Kooperativa Förbundet (KF). Coop Sverige Aktiebolag, AB coordinates purchasing, marketing and shared services for the chain's appro ...

. KF accounts for approximately 55 percent of consumer cooperative retail sales in Sweden. The other part is run by local or regional retail cooperatives, even though procurement, logistics and store brands are integrated. Together, KF and the consumer co-operatives have a market share of 21.5 per cent of the Swedish grocery retail trade (2010).

References

Supermarkets of Sweden Companies based in Solna Municipality Cooperatives in Sweden Cooperative federations Retail companies established in 1899 1899 establishments in Sweden Food cooperatives Coop Norden {{retail-company-stub

History

Today

See also

References