The Co-op Group plunged to a loss in 2025 in the wake of April 2025’s cyberattack and continued “tough market conditions”.
The group pledged to slash £200m of operating costs in 2026, as it set an “immediate priority” to recover profitability growth.
CEO Shirine Khoury-Haq will now step aside after four years at the group’s helm, leaving Kate Allum as interim CEO. The group said it needed “long-term leadership” for the group’s multi-year recovery strategy.
Costing an estimated £285m in lost revenue and £107m in lost profits, the cyberattack forced Co-op to shut down systems and lose out on sales.
While the £107m blow to profits is milder than Co-op had estimated in September 2025, the group also faced an estimated £150m “layered cost headwinds”, including £47m of regulatory costs including new EPR and NI charges.
Revenues in the year to 31 December 2025 fell 2.3% to £11bn – though would have grown 0.3% without the cyberattack – and underlying operating profit fell from £131m to a loss of £35m.
Even without the cyberattack, the Co-op’s profit growth from 2024 would have been wiped out, with the Co-op due to have fallen to a pre-tax loss of £40m.
Co-op Group chair Debbie White, however, said the challenges of 2025 had “helped reshape Co-op for the future”.
“Despite a cyberattack and tough market conditions, our colleagues have shown incredible resilience, keeping communities served and essential services running,” she said.
“To get back on track, we have adjusted our commercial strategy and strengthened our partner offer while substantially growing active membership.”
In September 2025, Co-op announced a raft of senior leadership changes and a full restructure of its commercial and logistics functions.
Now organised under its former food MD Matt Hood, the Co-op’s newly-centralised commercial and logistics teams forms a major UK buying group – and a “path to growth”, according to Khoury-Haq.
“Trading conditions remain difficult and the current geopolitical landscape is adding further instability, but we have reasons for optimism. Including our own estate and partners, we supply close to 8,000 stores; our new Commercial and Logistics business is turning this strength as a supplier into a path to growth,” she said.
Co-op’s supplier revenues have been hit by market contractions, with wholesale revenues down 2.2% to £1.3bn thanks largely to a decline in tobacco demand. The group’s Federal Retail Trading Services, which acted as a buying group, saw revenues slump 5.4% to £2bn.
The group’s retail business was “particularly affected” by the cyber attack, as a “tail” of changed buyer behaviour saw shoppers stay away in the wake of disruption to convenience shopping habits.
The division lost 2% of its revenues in 2025, as a three-point blow from the cyberattack counteracted growth. It made an underlying operating profit of £34m.
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