Stocking the Store: Co-operative Retailers in North–East England and Systems of Wholesale Supply circa 1860–77

Abstract

The essay examines wholesale purchasing by the retail stores of consumers' co-operatives in north-east England during their rapid initial growth between the early 1860s and the later 1870s. Drawing on society minute books and Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) accounts, the complexity and variety of retail co-operatives' trading relations with both the private and co-operative sector are explored. Initially, in the absence of an accessible co-operative source of stock, retail societies developed working relations with a range of private suppliers. The larger co-operatives, in particular, established links with specialist wholesalers and food processors in distant markets that rivalled in their sophistication the systems of supply of substantial private retail grocers. Many co-operatives also seem to have used several different suppliers in the search for the best bargain for consumers as members. This pursuit of local consumers' interests also characterised relations with the CWS which, even after the establishment of a Newcastle branch in 1872, continued to be unevenly supported by north-eastern co-operatives. The commercial and political reasons for this ambivalence are explored.