Good afternoon, Karl from Cookiewolf, saying hello!
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Hello! Karl from Cookiewolf. Based in Bacton, Norfolk.
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Hello Karl! The next chance for an in-person meeting of members of the UK worker co-op federation will be in Glasgow on November 20th. There’s more details here! @Katja
Hello All!
Sam here (he/him) from Sheffield, we are currently in peak hectic set up mode for our new Tree Surgery workers Co-Operative
Excited to be bringing the ‘HI Vis’ and saw dust mess to the federation! and to meet everyone on here! Online for know, but looking forward to meeting people IRL over the coming months at events and so on!
Glad to see Cath’s comments above! Yorkshire legend that she is @leedscath
Also nice to see some Stirchley Dev people as well. From what I’ve read that looks super exciting/inspirational. Big up Birmingham!
Scrolling through there’s to many to give due chapeau’s to.
Looking forward to connecting with all and soaking up some wisdom.
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Hi @Sam I’m based in Sheffield, would be good to meet for a chat at some point! We also have a wiki for co-ops in Sheffield, let me know if you would you like an account to add your co-op.
Hey Chris
Ah nice yes a meet up would be brilliiant. Where and when abouts suits you.? Thanks
Yes a login would be great for that. I had discovered this wiki a while back while scouting around for collaborators
Very handy.
Ta
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Hello everyone,
I’m Nancy, based in Birmingham.
I’m a founding member of Birmingham Bike Foundry and Stirchley Co-op Development, former member of Loaf Community Bakery and have been living and working in co-ops in Birmingham for the best part of 20 years.
Since the beginning of April, taken on a role a workers.coop alongside @samnord to support general operations and the federation’s Movement Building activity.
I know some of you already and have met some of you over the last couple of weeks too, but wanted to say hello here. Looking forward to working together.
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Hi all, I am Lorenzo, based in Edinburgh.
I have been involved with both housing and stakeholder co-ops here in Scotland, and graduated from the Barefoot course last summer. I might have met some of you in Glasgow in November.
I am very happy to be supporting the federation as board secretary. Looking forward to get involved, and to meet some of you in Sheffield next month!
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Hi everyone,
I’m Sam, I’m part of Pandion Labs. We’re an environment and climate focused tech coop. We’ve been slowly starting up over the last year and currently have four members.
We specialize in data science, software engineering, remote sensing, community science and ecology. So far, most of the work we’ve been doing has been creating dashboards, designing field protocols, data analysis, and making tools to help with fieldwork. Currently we are working on an app to help beekeepers detect disease in their hives earlier.
We are in the process of establishing our legal entity. As our team is spread between the UK, USA, and Germany, its a bit complicated. If anyone knows of any lawyers or financial consultants who specialize in international co-ops, we would love to connect with them.
Lovely to meet you all!
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@kawaiipunk maybe the autonomic consortium model might be relevant here?
Have you spoken to the advice team at Co-operatives UK?
Hello. We’re in the process of setting up a worker co-operative grocery in Leicester, based on what Unicorn Grocery are doing in Manchester.
There are two of us at the moment. As we get further with it, we’re hoping more people will join.
We’ve written a fairly extensive business plan off the back of a survey we ran, and we’re now looking for premises and funding. About £50k is pledged so far.
We’ve held two public meetings and the third is on 19th September. We have a website with details about our project, and there’s a newsletter people can sign up to.
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Hi,
We are Daily Bread in Northampton. You may want to look at Leicester Wholefood Co-op https://wholefoodcoop.co.uk/ Both Unicorn and they took a few ideas from us and have been very successful particularly Unicorn.
We ourselves are struggling at the moment but we wish you well, looks like you have made good progress.
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Thanks for replying, and for the good wishes.
I know Leicester Wholefoods well, I worked there for more than six years. It isn’t a co-op now, though. From what I know it stopped being one some time in the mid-90s.
Unicorn have been helping us a lot and we’re grateful for it. We went to the study day they held in March, which was generous of them to put on, and we got a lot out of it. Dan Kelly at CASE Leicester is helping us too.
I’ve read about how Daily Bread started, and what Roger Sawtell wrote stayed with me. Sorry to hear you’re having a hard time of it at the moment. I heard that Daily Bread Co-operative in Cambridge has closed. Arjuna seem to be doing all right.
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Hi Rajiv. From the experience of seeing the closure of 2 really successful worker co-op vegan/organic/wholefood shops (and a number of other independents) in the south, I’d recommend that you pay a lot of attention to the marketing mix and marketing strategies. One thing that hit the indie sector hard was core products that used to only be available at independents being stocked by supermarkets. Vegan meat alternatives and milks and even wholefoods are available at knock down prices that are only sustainable for these large players. The wholefood buying group I’m in has also seen most members move from the co-op for staples like grains and soya milk to discounters like Aldi/Lidl, using the co-op for premium price specialist “treats”. You need to be providing things that people can’t get anywhere else (new products all the time) rather than hoping people will pay extra for the same products because a worker co-op is more ethical. You need to have a really active promotional strategy so that people find you. It’s not quite that simple but worth considering these issues as you plan. Top tip: Deli counters bring in the customers!
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Hi Nathan,
Thanks for this, it’s useful. Sorry to hear about those closures.
I agree we have to stock things the supermarkets can’t or won’t. I saw the other side of that at Leicester Wholefoods, where some customers only came in when we had an offer on something the supermarkets also sold and we were cheaper. They never bought anything else.
On the deli tip, we’re planning a kitchen from day one. Good tip!
The other part of it for us is local growers. We’ve had a few conversations already, and the aim is a good supply of fresh produce grown nearby. There’s a county-wide push in Leicestershire to do the same. We went to the Leicestershire Good Food event recently, which brought a lot of the local growers together, most of them small, to look at ways of working together.
On promotion, we haven’t worked out a strategy for the shop yet. There’s nothing to point people at until there’s a shop. What we’re doing now is building up the people who’ll be there when it opens. The public meetings are where we hear what people actually want, and the newsletter keeps subscribers up to date. We’ve just had some merch made to get the name about.
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Hello! Spruce here from Cloud Mountain Tattoo, a small co-operatively run tattoo studio in Glasgow. We just opened May 2026 and are starting to think about bringing in a new member. After a big hectic DIY summer, things are started to feel a bit more settled in the studio, so we’re looking forward to getting more involved in the wider co-op community 
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Welcome Spruce, it’s lovely to hear an update from yourselves and a bit about what you’re up to! It was cool to see a new type of business joining, you are our first tattoo studio! Feel free to ask questions or share things on the Member Discussion. The next in person event coming up is the Autumn Assembly worker coop gathering in Leeds November 19-20, and feel free to DM me or @Nancy if you’d like to book in for any more new member Inductions to workers.coop.
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Hey Ravij. How did you get on at the meeting 19th? Hope it’s going well.
Sam
Hi Spruce.
Exciting stuff. Hope it’s going well.
I’ve forwarded your details onto Josh (shitjesustatoos) who part of Big Smile Tattoos Sheffield. Theyr a collectively run tattoo studio. He’s a director and part time at our tree surgery co op but tattooing is his main gig. Hed love to have a chat and connect with you guys.
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