Fielding its new-look leadership team in front of a full-scale supplier audience for the first time, Co-op took the opportunity of this year’s Trade Briefing to reclaim its status as the retailer offering the best opportunities for growth in the UK convenience channel, standing squarely behind the statement ‘if you want to grow in convenience you have to grow with Co-op’.

In four keynote presentations Imran Rasul, Nick Meagher, Kenyatte Nelson and Rachel Halter set out to show how, putting distractions aside, Co-op is now once again committed to ‘doubling-down on convenience’.

Imran Rasul, Chief Commercial Officer: refocusing for stability and ‘what we do best’

Celebrating the trading recovery showcased in its H1 results Chief Commercial Office, Imran Rasul pointed to further improvement now apparent in the business’ year-to-date figures as transaction numbers have now returned to levels last seen before the malicious cyber-attack that impacted its 2025 performance.  Ahead of the wider business Qcomm, in particular, continues on a steep trajectory growing by 27% in 2026 and available from 92% of Co-op’s stores.

While acknowledging the changes to senior management over the last year Imran sought to give clarity about the short and longer-term ambitions of the Co-op and outlined how it will be led.

Co-op is really clear that the priority is improving and growing the performance of its existing five food channels to generate growth and scale for Co-op and its partners. He referenced how there is a high performing, engaged and focused Commercial team which he leads, working closely with their Supply and Logistics colleagues, led by Andy Wilmot, to buy and supply the very best brand and own brand products for them.

Whilst its ambition to grow additional buying and revenue streams via new partners remains a future, longer term ambition, it is focused on the significant potential its own channels will bring.

The separate Commercial and Logistics and Supply functions, offers a structure to serve Co-op food channels as Imran said ‘incredibly well’ backed by a team that fully understands Co-op’s goal of ‘one commercial organisation: one vision’.

As a counterpoint to perceived change Imran highlighted how much at Co-op remains constant such as its heritage as a retailer driven by values and ethics as well as its position as a best-in-class retailer that continues to evolve a sophisticated, market-leading convenience proposition finely tuned to the missions and need-states of its shoppers.  In partnership with suppliers Imran sees the opportunity to build sustainable, profitable growth through understanding shoppers, sharing the best ideas and thinking differently about Co-op’s specific trade channels.

Nick Meagher, Head of Advanced Analytics & Insight: showcasing deep shopper knowledge and Co-op’s ‘behavioural superpower’

Nick shared some of the growing insight that drives the development of Co-op’s shopper proposition especially what makes Co-op shopper behaviour different.  While Co-op shopper behaviour spans a universal spectrum between planned and impulsive it is skewed towards impulsive in terms of transactions (55% vs 45%) a skew that is even more marked in terms of spend (75% vs 25%).

Driven by impulsive and spontaneous missions Co-op shoppers represent high frequency customers that give the retailer the second highest transaction count across the entire UK market.  It’s this level of frequency that gives Co-op a superpower as a highly effective platform for suppliers both to sell to, but also to communicate with, a customer base that includes one in three of all UK shoppers.   

Offering a more granular view of this high-frequency opportunity Co-op now identifies four key customer groups it is seeking to target: ‘Creative Cooks’, ‘A Cut Above’, ‘Fast Foodies’ and ‘Make it Simple’.  These are groups where Co-op has a double-share of spend versus other groups and are its primary focus for developing solutions to drive engagement and up-trade.

With a growing body of insight now available to suppliers from Co-op membership data and its data partners, such as Circana, Nick urged all those present to ensure they have access to these resources to best work with Co-op to create truly customer-focused products and activity in the convenience channel.

Kenyatte Nelson, Chief Strategy & Customer Director: missions, membership & media

Kenyatte reiterated the Co-op commitment to ‘doing convenience right’ based around a customer proposition that is ‘solutions-based, value-driven and easy’.  Central to achieving this is the focus on delivering convenient mission solutions, member value through loyalty and introducing innovation via Coop Media Network - Missions, Membership and Media.

Kenyatte celebrated that membership has grown significantly in recent years.  Now including 7.6 million active members (with a future target of hitting ten million) with penetration of spend reaching 70%, 'Kenyatte flagged that some 2.2m co-op members are digitally engaged, with the ambition to increase that number to +4m by 2030.

This has created opportunities for targeting shoppers with a growing range of mechanics such as personalised offers, boosters, games and member prizes.  2027 will see a major step in digital member/shopper engagement with the launch of ‘High Five’ a new platform specifically designed to drive frequency with a targeted reward mechanic.

Focusing on the development of Co-op’s retail media programme he pointed to Co-op’s unique position as a national convenience retailer offering scale, convenience and execution for retail media activity.  As well as providing the reach and precision of its store estate the convenience environment offers higher levels of attention and recall amongst shoppers.  This Co-op research shows creates incremental opportunities for suppliers not only driving shopper behaviour in Co-op stores themselves but also in the wider grocery retail landscape.

Rachel Halter, Customer Director: ‘Today’s food, made easy, done right’

Bringing the keynote session to a close Rachel set out how Co-op’s convenience focus centres around, and will continue to be driven by, the ‘intentional servicing’ of four key missions: top-up, meal for tonight, food-to-go and treat.  She urged suppliers to consider these as priorities above all when developing products and activity.  As missions that are delivering both value and volume growth through Co-op stores these will sit at the centre of improved trade plans going forward.

Rachel also spoke about work now being done to deliver a ‘value reset’ in store.  As well as seeking to ensure more price competitiveness though price-matching and promotions Co-op is also ‘rebalancing’ its price file to remove unhelpful anomalies.  The project is being backed with a drive to reduce promotional clutter in-store and create simpler, more impactful deals as well as clearer communication signalling the different layers of value on offer.  In terms of organisation, she also announced an upcoming change in the length of promotional periods, with Co-op moving from cycles of three weeks to four-week periods; creating clearer opportunities for price-establishment in the calendar.

Finally, Rachel flagged the five-year extension of Co-op’s contract to operate stores across UK summer music festivals, representing an opportunity to service two million additional customers at these events and drive awareness of Co-op’s proposition amongst younger demographics core to the wider convenience market.