Co-op is now running at full operational capacity across its supply chain following a cyberattack that caused widespread availability issues in its stores earlier this year.
The convenience retailer’s results for the six months to 5 July 2025 revealed it had lost £120m due to the cyberattack and sales fell by £206m after it was forced to shut down parts of its supply chain and logistics network.
Combined with cost headwinds of £70m the Co-op reported a pre-tax loss of £50m against a £58m profit in H1 2024.
CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq confirmed today, however, the business’s supply chain and availability were now back performing at full capacity.
“The cyberattack will not define our Co-op,” she said. “It’s been a challenging six months, but I’m pleased to say we navigated those challenges thanks to our balance sheet strength, and we’re now focused on regaining momentum across our business.”
Khoury-Haq also praised her “amazing colleagues” for the proactive measures they took during the cyberattack in order to keep stores open and serving customers and members.
“The cyberattack was a significant event for our Co-op, and like all significant events, it offered a moment to reflect,” she said. “It surfaced the things we were already doing well: our colleagues are exceptional, we responded as a member-owned organisation backed by a strong balance sheet, and sharpened our focus to strengthen our partnerships.”
The latter has seen the creation of a new group commercial and logistics division, led by Matt Hood, who was recently promoted from Co-op food MD to chief commercial and logistics officer.
At the Co-op IGD Trade Briefing event last week, hosted at Co-op Live in Manchester, Hood said it “gave us the opportunity to stand in front of 1,200 suppliers and introduce the new ways of working”.
“We are unique as a retailer in that we service 8,000 stores but we only own 2,300 of those,” he said. “We’ve been talking for a while about how we restructure in order to service all of our customers and partners and help them grow.
“Within this function, it enables us to grow our buying group further with existing customers, franchisees, wholesale partners, and other co-op independents.
“Suppliers are rightly asking lots of questions about new ways of working and we’re educating them as we go, but generally there is a lot of excitement both with our supplier base and the partners we service.”
Khoury-Haq also highlighted that membership continued to grow, fuelled by investment in price and marketing. Co-op added 800,000 new members to its scheme during the first half of the year, putting it at 6.9 million overall. She said the business was on track to reach its eight million target by 2030.
The Grocer also understands Co-op has recovered most of its share of the quick commerce market, which was also impacted by the cyberattack. According to NIQ data seen by The Grocer, its q-commerce share was 24% in April before slipping to 17% in May. According to the latest available numbers Co-op’s market share is currently 21%.
Co-op Wholesale revenue, meanwhile, contracted 3.9% to £640m, with tobacco being the most material driver as customer behaviour change accelerated, the company said.
Sales to other co-ops via the Co-op’s Federation Retail Trading Services buying group dropped 5.1% as the impact of the cyberattack reduced availability.
During the cyberattack, Co-op Wholesale was utilised to support sales to the other co-ops, routing around 350,000 cases of stock to 209 independent society stores, which partially reduced the scale of the impact on its total B2B revenue.
Its franchising operation reported strong growth of 36.1% even with the cyberattack impact, with continued expansion into new markets such as hospitals.
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