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The Co-op's decline has been almost as bad as that of the independent sector. It has raised cash by selling the investment side of CIS, pharmacies and farms. It has withdrawn from manufacturing, non-food retail sectors, and large grocery stores. It has pretty much written off its bank. Recently it sold off a number of smaller stores to McColls. If it had wanted to enter the wholesale sector it could have negotiated a supply deal as part of the McColls deal. On a much smaller scale Scotmid Co-op entered the wholesale sector by buying M&S Toiletries and that was, to put it politely, a failure. The consumer co-op model is very different to the business partnership model of Nisa.

Given all the above, can anybody really believe that Co-op Group ownership of Nisa promises any benefit to Nisa members or the wider independent sector?