The Co-op has refuted claims of a toxic culture of fear at the business, insisting that staff are encouraged to share a “wide range of views” about the direction of travel of the c-store specialist and that colleague engagement remains high.
In response to questions about whether the retailer would be launching any internal investigation into allegations of a “toxic culture” made against the retailer today, a Co-op spokeswoman told Retail Week:
“Following the cyber attack in 2025, which had a significant financial and operational impact on our business, we took informed decisions at pace to bring back the customers we had lost during the period of disruption and ensure the business was set up for future success. Given the challenging nature of these events, we had to make many difficult and decisive choices.
“Our culture, as a cooperative, ensured decision making throughout has listened to views from leaders and colleagues across our Food and wider business, while simultaneously acknowledging when a wide range of views are expressed, not everybody will always agree with the final decisions and actions taken. We do not recognise the critical comments referencing culture, leader behaviours and decision making in our Co-op and do not believe that they represent the views of our broader leadership and colleagues.”
“The actions we took in both the short and long-term interests of our Co-op as we responded to challenging trading conditions, has seen our businesses continue to move forward, and as a result all our businesses, including our food business, have now recovered market share back to pre-cyber levels. Equally, [the group commercial and logistics unit] was established to significantly grow at scale our buying group and the opportunities from that are already driving positive results.
“Our colleague engagement remains high, and our culture and ethos mean we continue to engage with all our colleagues and leaders to ensure they act constructively and co-operatively for the long-term benefit of the business.”
The statement comes after the BBC reported today (February 11) that Co-op senior managers had written to the board to flag a culture of “fear and alienation” at the business, and an environment where people are scared of bringing up concerns in front of the company’s leaders, including chief executive Shirine Khoury-Haq.
The letter, seen by the broadcaster, also alleged that “leadership behaviours have significantly degraded the leadership culture of our Co-op”.
Other sources reportedly said that a culture they believe discourages challenge is prevalent at the Co-op, which in turn has resulted in a hit to morale, staff exits and poor trading performance.
The letter criticised not only the retailer’s response to the cyber attack that it experienced last year, but also the creation of its new group commercial and logistics division.
The restructuring led to several senior executives departing the business, and warnings that it would disrupt the performance of the business and confuse its supplier base.
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