Modern slavery statement
Reporting on our work to tackle modern slavery.
Modern slavery statement
At Co-op we have a long-standing commitment to protecting human rights in the UK and overseas. We welcomed the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015 and are committed to providing an open and honest account of what we’re doing to prevent modern slavery in our supply chains and business. Read more about our approach to ethical trading, and how we work to tackle modern slavery in our food supply chains.
Our modern slavery statement explains what we did during our 2025 financial year to prevent modern slavery taking place in our business and supply chains. It also includes a summary of how we did against our 2025 targets.
Our key achievements in 2025
1. We launched a new Pan-Co-op human rights working group to establish a unified approach to identifying, preventing and mitigating human rights risks, and to review actions already taken.
2. In Food, our supplier management programme drove 5,691 improvement actions based on audit findings and addressed 21 new human rights issues through non-audit channels.
3. We reached 3,717 people across 150 events in 5 countries in our Food global supplier engagement programme and worked collaboratively to develop tools, guidance and training programmes in the UK, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Spain and South Africa. These focused on critical areas including worker accommodation, grievance mechanisms and gender-based violence and harassment prevention.
4. Working with the Seasonal Worker Scheme Taskforce (SWST), we trained 425 growers through Grower Roadshow events, implemented an independent worker survey and supported a series of multistakeholder roundtable events to respond to a feasibility study on the Employer Pays Principle in UK agriculture.
5. Our Goods Not for Resale (GNFR) and Q-Commerce teams worked closely with partner companies – including Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo – to examine their modern slavery management processes and procedures.
6. In Funeralcare, we mapped our Tier 2 supply chain and collaborated with GNFR colleagues to profile these organisations using EcoVadis IQ in order to better understand risks.
7. In Logistics, we partnered with central teams to create a 15-minute modern slavery awareness session, which will become a certified module within the annual Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (DCPC) course and reach all our Co-op drivers in the first half of 2026.
8. Internally, our Anti-Slavery Week campaign in October reached over a thousand colleagues through a multi-channel approach, featuring short videos from leaders across all business units explaining why combating modern slavery matters to us.
9. We achieved a Gold EcoVadis medal, which places us in the top 5% of all companies assessed by EcoVadis over the past 12 months.
Modern slavery campaigning
We have a long history of addressing social injustice and supporting workers' rights. At our 2017 AGM, our members voted overwhelmingly in support of us campaigning on modern slavery and better victim support.
Since 2016, we’ve been raising awareness and campaigning for better support for victims of modern slavery. We also launched our Bright Future programme, which offers the opportunity of a paid work placement and a job in our food business to those who have been rescued from modern slavery. In 2020, Bright Future became an independent co-operative in its own right, with Co-op as one of the 9 founding members.
Raising awareness of modern slavery
We continue to raise awareness of modern slavery, providing resources to help spot the signs of modern slavery and signposting to the Modern Slavery Helpline.