The Strange Reason Co-op Charges More — And Why It Can't Stop

If you removed every shareholder from a supermarket, gave ownership to the customers, and ran the whole thing for the people shopping there — would the prices come down? The Co-op has been running that experiment for 181 years. The answer, according to the data, is mostly no. Founded in 1844 in Rochdale specifically to stop working class shoppers from being overcharged, Co-op is now one of the most expensive places to buy basic groceries in Britain. It loses £80 million a year to shoplifting — more than half its operating profit. And the people paying the highest prices are often the ones with no other choice. This isn't a story about a company lying about its values. It's a story about why good values aren't enough to fix a structural problem that has been getting harder for 181 years.