Co-op News (August 2019)
What is co-operative culture - and why does it matter? This issue looks at how co-op values intersect with the values in organisations, across movements and between countries. Plus 100 years of the Channel Islands Co-operative – and how the new Coop Exchange app is tackling the capital conundrum.
What is co-operative culture - and why does it matter? This issue looks at how co-op values intersect with the values in organisations, across movements and between countries. Plus 100 years of the Channel Islands Co-operative – and how the new Coop Exchange app is tackling the capital conundrum.
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HOW DO YOU MARKET THE<br />
CO-OPERATIVE<br />
IDENTITY?<br />
BY MILES HADFIELD<br />
Questions surrounding co-<strong>op</strong> culture and identity are vital to current efforts<br />
to double the size of the UK movement: how do we preserve that culture during<br />
the growth process, and how do we make that culture inclusive to new pe<strong>op</strong>le brought<br />
into the movement? This year’s <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> <strong>Co</strong>ngress, held in Manchester in June, looked<br />
at how to grow the movement – and included a look at the implications of this for<br />
marketing the co-<strong>op</strong> identity, and questions on how to engage youth in co-<strong>op</strong> culture.<br />
<strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>erative identity came under the<br />
microsc<strong>op</strong>e at a <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> <strong>Co</strong>ngress <strong>2019</strong><br />
session when representatives from two<br />
leading co-<strong>op</strong>s discussed ways it can<br />
be marketed.<br />
Pete Westall, chief values officer at the<br />
Midcounties <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>, whose <strong>op</strong>erations<br />
include retail, funerals, energy, telecoms<br />
and childcare, said embedding the<br />
identity “at the heart of customer<br />
experience” is especially important,<br />
given the society’s range of <strong>op</strong>erations.<br />
He gave the example of the Midcounties’<br />
nursery business, <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> Childcare. With<br />
all nurseries rated good or outstanding<br />
by Ofsted, the society had “licence to do<br />
something a bit different”.<br />
Firstly, Midcounties is using member<br />
insight, and encouraging every parent<br />
who has a child at one of its nurseries to<br />
become a member.<br />
“How do we reflect member needs and<br />
wishes in what we do in those nurseries?”<br />
asked Mr Westall. “We ask their priorities.<br />
They came back saying it was education<br />
– with education on the environment at<br />
the t<strong>op</strong>.”<br />
In response, the society set up an ecoschool<br />
programme, showing children<br />
where food comes from, and ensuring<br />
food transparency in the nursery’s meals.<br />
This drive to put a message consistently<br />
across all nurseries is replicated<br />
throughout the society, with member<br />
experience the key to Midcounties’<br />
co-<strong>op</strong> culture. “Putting members at the<br />
heart of what we do is important,” said Mr<br />
Westall, “and we have one person on our<br />
executive team whose job that is.<br />
“The culture is different – for the<br />
first time there is accountability at<br />
management level to make sure we stick<br />
to those values.”<br />
Different challenges in establishing<br />
a co-<strong>op</strong> culture among members is faced<br />
by Openfield, the UK’s only national grain<br />
marketing co-<strong>op</strong> – a large organisation<br />
with a turnover of £650m, supplying<br />
numerous high-profile customers.<br />
Marketing manager Richard Kaye<br />
described efforts to “get everyone on<br />
board with what we are”, including the<br />
farmers who own it, its customers and<br />
i t ss t a ff .<br />
To do this, Mr Kaye led efforts to clean<br />
up Openfield’s “muddled” messaging and<br />
branding, to explain simply the full range<br />
of its services and client base.<br />
He said Openfield is using the word<br />
“partnership” to stress its co-<strong>op</strong>erative<br />
difference from foreign-owned grain plcs<br />
who send their profits overseas.<br />
All these messages are integrated, he<br />
added, so that “everyone can talk about<br />
how they add value to the Openfield<br />
Partnership”.<br />
Asked why he had <strong>op</strong>ted for the word<br />
partnership, Mr Kaye said communicating<br />
the co-<strong>op</strong> identity is a “challenge”.<br />
“Partnership is my modern way of<br />
translating it,” he said. “We consulted the<br />
farmers and pe<strong>op</strong>le didn’t understand<br />
‘co-<strong>op</strong>erative’; but they did understand<br />
‘partnership’. As we move forward I want<br />
to go back to that. A line in the material<br />
does say we’re the only national grain<br />
marketing co-<strong>op</strong>.”<br />
32 | AUGUST <strong>2019</strong>