Coomeva is a cooperative that groups 265,000 professionals and offers a wide range of products and services. Its assets total 2.5 billion dollars and its equity totals 275 million, ranking among the 20 largest companies in Colombia. Coomevas services are articulated in a business group of 16 companies in the health, finance and recreation and […]
Ilígora Cooperative: training and jobs to serve the local community
The Ilígora Cooperative is located in Montora, a town of 10.000 inhabitants in the province of Córdoba, Spain, where it works in various aspects of the service sector. It was created in 2005 by the Jesús Nazareno Hospital Foundation and the El Yate Cooperative. Since then it has increased its activities, becoming an important source […]
A Different Museum: The co-operative Workers’ Museum in Copenhagen
Imagine a museum whose most precious possession is not a painting by Van Gogh or an art installation by Ai Weiwei but a 100-year-old packed lunch wrapped in an old newspaper from 1886! Such a museum actually exists. It is the Danish co-operative Workers Museum in Copenhagen, situated in a building which in itself is […]
Strength through unity
Cooperativa CoopeAgri El General R.L. is based in Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica. Today it groups about 20,000 small coffee and sugar producers. Its history began 45 years ago, when it had about 365 members, a number that has increased exponentially. Its coffee exports amount to 170 thousand hundredweights per year, and it exports 30 thousand […]
Cooperativa Agrícola Industrial y de Servicios Múltiples El General R.L – COOPEAGRI
Since its founding, CoopeAgri El General R.L. has evolved greatly in terms of technology, level of production, and development alternatives. It is a cooperative that produces and distributes coffee, cane sugar, and organic fertilizer both nationally and internationally. The cooperative also has 4 supermarkets directly benefiting members, along with many other services. It is the […]
From Paraffin stoves to steel
In post-civil war Spain’s Basque country, a group of young, working class graduates with few job prospects founded a small co-operative to build paraffin stoves. They then began to set up other co-operative business ventures. When they needed capital for expansion, they started their own co-operative bank. These young people had been taught the ways […]
Mondragon Corporation
MONDRAGON Corporation is the embodiment of the co-operative movement that began in 1956; its business philosophy is contained in its Corporate Values: Co-operation, participation, Social Responsibility, Innovation. Mondragon’s Mission combines the core goals of a business organisation competing on international markets with the use of democratic methods in its business organisation, the creation of jobs, […]
Peruvian cooperative brings small producers together
Cocla is a Peruvian second-tier co-operative made up by 22 first-tier co-operatives that has been working for 44 years to support Peruvian agriculture in line with its social and service-oriented mission. Cocla began its first activities before 1967, when seven Coffee Growers Co-operatives based in the Peruvian province of La Convención and in the district […]
Small producers’ cooperative building success in Honduras
16 years ago, 22 producers gathered under a fig tree to set up a new agricultural coffee growers co-operative, which is today known as Cooperativa Agrícola Cafetalera San Antonio Limitada (COAGRICSAL). After years of hard work and professional experience in selling coffee through other second-tier organizations, COAGRICSAL has significantly grown until today, becoming the biggest […]
Cooperativa Agrícola Cafetalera San Antonio Limitada – COAGRICSAL
COAGRICSAL is the largest first level fair trade organization in Honduras. It is mainly a coffee producing cooperative, but has recently added fine cocoa. The cooperative benefits over 1500 families through direct and indirect initiatives including the development of community centers, schools, water management, reforestation projects and more. It specifically supports youth through education and […]