The Co-op has announced that it will no longer source products from Israel, as well as 16 other countries it has identified as containing “internationally recognised community-wide human rights abuses and violations of international law”.
In a statement on its website, the Co-op group said that starting this month it would stop selling a range of products, including “Russian vodka, mangoes from Mali, and carrots from Israel”.
The full list of countries named were: Afghanistan, Belarus, Central African Republic, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Haiti, Iran, Israel, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The Co-op group said that “affected suppliers have been contacted and the Group will manage the end of contracts in line with the Groceries Supply Code of Practice. This means products and ingredients will start to be removed from this month on a phased basis, due to contract and seasonal crop commitments.”
The decision comes a month after three quarters of representatives at the Co-op’s annual general meeting voted in favour of a full boycott of Israeli products.
At the time, a response from the Co-op board to the motion in the AGM handbook noted that “the nature of international food supply chains means that it is very often impossible, impractical or unsafe to stop sourcing products entirely from specific countries…Following the invasion of Ukraine, we stopped ranging products which were self-evidently from Russia like Russian Standard Vodka. We did not stop sourcing all products from Russia and would not have been able to do so due to the international food supply chain complexities noted above.”
The newly announced policy follows in that vein, also stating that “wherever possible, the Group will not use ingredients in Co-op-branded products or sell whole products from 17 countries of concern, which have been identified by the international community.”
The group said that its sourcing decision followed a year of analysis, with countries selected on three criteria.
“The first is that there is agreement across respected assessments, such as by the UN and others, ‘that there is consistent behaviour which would constitute community-wide human rights abuses or violations of international law’.
“Second is that there the actions the Group can take which would ‘make a difference directly or indirectly to those affected and would alleviate suffering’.
“The final criteria is that the actions ‘would not negatively affect the Co-op’s integrity as a commercially successful co-operative business aligned with co-operative values and principles’.
The Manchester-based consumer co-operative has not sourced products from the West Bank since 2007, in response to a motion which was passed by its members at the time. In response, many members of the UK Jewish community have since avoided shopping in the Co-op supermarkets.
The move comes as Italy’s largest consumer co-operative announced that it would stop selling Israeli products in solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in Gaza. Coop Alleanza 3.0 confirmed it will remove Israeli-made goods such as tahini, peanuts and SodaStream devices from its nearly 350 stores across eight regions. It is also stocking a new pro-Palestinian fizzy drink, Gaza Cola.
In a statement, Coop Alleanza said it “cannot remain indifferent to the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip” and joined calls for an immediate end to Israel’s military operation.
Other Coop branches in Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria have taken similar steps, but have denied that this amounts to a formal boycott.
