Coop amba wholly owns the three subsidiaries of Coop Danmark, Coop Invest and Coop Bank. Coop Invest owns Republica A/S, an advertising company focused on retail sales, and Severin A/S, a training center first built in 1932.
Coop Danmark
Coop Danmark is the second-biggest retailer of consumer goods in Denmark, with a market share of 40% and 1.4 million members.[6] Its main competitors are the dominant Salling Group (covering Netto, Føtex and Bilka), REMA 1000, Dagrofa (covering SPAR, Meny and Kiwi) and Lidl.[7] With 939 (2024)[8] supermarkets, discount stores and hypermarkets in Denmark,[6] Coop Danmark operates the following stores: Kvickly, Brugsen, Dagli'Brugsen, SuperBrugsen & 365discount, and is known for the now closed chains LokalBrugsen, Fakta & Irma.[9] Coop Danmark and its subsidiaries have 38,527 employees (2024)[8] and post a yearly turnover of 45.859 billion DKK (2024)[8].[10]
In April 2017, Coop Danmark launched a digital crowdfunding platform in cooperation with Lendino. Major projects include the development of environmentally friendly cattle feeding with a budget of 2.5 million DKK, an apple orchard on Fejø for 660.000 DKK, and a whiskey distillery on Ærø.[11][12]
Irma supermarkets
Irma, a supermarket chain operated by Coop Danmark,[9] was founded in 1886 by Carl Schepler as a small grocery store selling eggs in Ravnsborggade in Nørrebro, Copenhagen. The chain is the second oldest groceries chain in the world, after Marks & Spencer. As of 2015, the chain had 80 stores,[13] mostly located in the Metropolitan Copenhagen area.[14]
Irma is quality-oriented mainly aiming for quality-conscious and environment-aware customers by focusing on fresh and organic products as well as packaging. Therefore, the stores have a great variety of organic products compared to other Danish supermarket, and packaging containing PVC and excessive amounts of aluminium are banned from the shelves. The same goes for chlorine-bleached products.[15]
Irma supermarkets
Irma, a supermarket chain operated by Coop Danmark,[9] was founded in 1886 by Carl Schepler as a small grocery store selling eggs in Ravnsborggade in Nørrebro, Copenhagen. The chain is the second oldest groceries chain in the world, after Marks & Spencer. As of 2015, the chain had 80 stores,[13] mostly located in the Metropolitan Copenhagen area.[14]
Irma is quality-oriented mainly aiming for quality-conscious and environment-aware customers by focusing on fresh and organic products as well as packaging. Therefore, the stores have a great variety of organic products compared to other Danish supermarket, and packaging containing PVC and excessive amounts of aluminium are banned from the shelves. The same goes for chlorine-bleached products.[15]
Brugsen
Brugsen was originally the nondescript brand name of Coop amba's retail outlets in Denmark. After opening a series of branded stores starting in 1961 and deciding to focus on its retail operations in the 1980s, Coop began closing factories, and spun off its larger Brugsen stores as SuperBrugsen in 1991 and its smaller ones as Dagli'Brugsen the next year. In 1995, the smallest convenience stores were organized as LokalBrugsen.[2]
After a failed attempt to merge their operations with Norway's Coop Norge (NKL) and Sweden's Kooperativa Förbundet (KF) as Coop Norden in 2002, Coop amba regained sole ownership of the group's Danish operations, Coop Danmark, in 2008.[2] Coop Denmark continues to operate the SuperBrugsen, Dagli'Brugsen, and LokalBrugsen chains as separate divisions of its operations.
From 2016 Coop re-branded four of the existing Coop stores to Brugsen once again,[26] including a flagship store inside the hall of Copenhagen Central Station.[27]
Kvickly
Kvickly was in the beginning a Swedish food market chain owned by the 'consumers organization' ('Konsumentföreningen') in Sweden. The first store opened in the 1950s in the Stockholm area. The company name was changed to Domus in Sweden in the late 1960s/early 1970s when the stores became superstores selling more than food.
The first Kvickly store was opened by FDB in Denmark in 1961.[2] In Denmark, the sister chain remains Kvickly, which has a large selection of items, and were in 2010 named by the Danish Ministry of Health as the easiest place in Denmark to buy healthy food. Kvickly's headquarters are in Albertslund, and it has 81 stores.[28]
Fakta
Fakta, a chain of discount stores as of September 2022 superseded by 365discount and was founded in 1981 as Dansk Discount A/S, renamed Fakta in 1982. Six years later, the chain became a part of Coop Danmark.[29] In May 2011, Fakta had 374 stores with around 6,000 employees.[30] They operated stores located at more central urban places, called Fakta Q, which sold food, primarily convenience food. They were replaced by regular Fakta stores with Fakta Q being discontinued in 2017.[31] Fakta's slogan is "Det er Fakta" ("It's a fact" or "It's Fakta"). The old slogan "Det er sund fornuft" ("It's common sense") is still used on Fakta-branded products. In the 21st century their slogan became "det tager kun 5 min" ("it only takes 5 mins"). In 2013, Fakta opened its first two stores in Germany, just south of the Danish border.[32]
In 2020 Coop began experimental opening of a new brand of stores then named, Coop 365.[33] This resulted in Coop in September 2022 deciding to completely revamp their discount offering by rebranding all Fakta stores (also closing some and rebuilding others) to this new brand, which, after several renames, ended up as 365discount.[34][35]
