Kooperativa Förbundet, KF (The Swedish Co-operative Union) is a federation

Cooperative federation

A co-operative federation or secondary co-operative is a co-operative in which all members are, in turn, co-operatives.Historically, co-operative federations have predominantly come in the form of co-operative wholesale societies and co-operative unions...

 of consumer co-operatives in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 and a retail group, with groceries as its core business.

History

KF was founded in 1899 by 41 local consumer co-operatives in order to support them with information and education of store managers and board members. Soon KF also became responsible for common procurement of goods. In the 1930s KF expanded rapidly during the management of Albin Johansson, setting up various industries in order to support the co-operative grocery stores. 1950-1970 KF was at the forefront of the Swedish retail trade by developing new and bigger store formats and it was one of the major business groups in Scandinavia. In the beginning of the 1990s, as a response to a financial crisis, KF decided to sell out all its industries and focus on retail trade only. Around year 2000 KF formed the retail chain Coop Norden

Coop Norden

Coop Norden is a joint Scandinavian holding company, formerly a retail chain. It is owned by three major cooperative retail companies; Danish FDB , Swedish KF , and Norwegian Coop NKL . As a retailer Coop Norden operated around 1,000 stores and had a yearly turnover of approximately SEK 90 billion...

 along with its Nordic co-operative counterparts, Danish FDB and Norwegian Coop NKL

Coop NKL

Coop NKL BA is a Norwegian cooperative retailing company. Coop NKL is owned by 177 local cooperative associations in Norway and has more than one million members and who actually operate that stores. The company has its headquarters in Oslo...

. In 2002, KF bought a 50% share in BOL Sweden from Bertelsmann

Bertelsmann

Bertelsmann AG is a multinational media corporation founded in 1835, based in Gütersloh, Germany. The company operates in 63 countries and employs 102,983 workers , which makes it the most international media corporation in the world. In 2008 the company reported a €16.118 billion consolidated...

. Due to poor financial results in Coop Norden the owners decided to renationalize the operation of the stores in 2007 and Coop Norden was transformed into a joint procurement company.

Today

As of 2011, KF is a federation of 43 consumer co-operatives with more than 3 million members and a retail group with a net worth (ex. VAT) of SEK 36,7 billions. The grocery retail group, Coop, stands for around 85 per cent of the sale with store brands like Coop Konsum, Coop Nära, Coop Extra and Coop Forum

Coop Forum

Coop Forum is a Swedish hypermarket chain. The concept is owned by Coop Butiker och Stormarknader AB, who also run most of the stores. Some stores are run by the regional co-operative societies through an agreement with Coop....

. KF accounts for approximately 55 percent of consumer cooperative retail sales in Sweden. The other part is run by local or regional retail cooperatives, even though procurement, logistics and store brands are integrated. Together, KF and the consumer co-operatives have a market share of 21,5 per cent of the Swedish grocery retail trade (2010).