Scottish Midland Co-op
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| Consumer co-operative | |
| Industry | Retail, Property, Funeral Services |
| Founded | 1859 |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Area served
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Scotland, Northern Ireland, Northern England |
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Key people
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| Revenue | £436.8 million GBP (2013) |
| + £5.1 million (2008) | |
| + £3.5 million before distributions (2008) | |
| Members | 237,000 (2008) |
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Number of employees
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5,200 |
| Website | www |
The Scottish Midland Co-operative Society, trading as Scotmid Co-operative, is an independent retail consumers' co-operative that originated in the Central Belt, particularly Edinburgh and the Lothians. It was formed in 1981 by a merger of the Dalziell Society of Motherwell with the St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society, which had been established in 1859. With over 5,000 staff, the chain now has nearly 200 supermarkets and five perfume shops in Scotland, nine Lakes & Dales food stores and over 140 Semichem health and beauty shops throughout Scotland, Northern Ireland and England
Like most other retail consumers' co-operatives in the UK, Scotmid is incorporated as an industrial and provident society, regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
In 1968, Leith Provident's 1911 department store on Great Junction Street was still operating a then unusual overhead wire system that transported a customer's payment and dividend number from the sales assistant to the cashier, returning change and receipt.
In 1995, Scotmid acquired the Scottish health and beauty retail chain Semi-Chem (since rebranded Semichem), followed in 1999 by the similar Northern Ireland business, Options. Also in 1999, Scotmid merged with Prestonpans Co-operative Society.
In 2000, Scotmid closed all 20 of its non-food department stores, which had made losses for five successive years.
In 2003, Scotmid acquired Wakefield-based national distribution business, M & S Toiletries, which it sold in 2008 to Sert UK.
In the early 21st century, Scotmid acquired several competing convenience stores in Scotland: Alldays, 64 SPAR stores and Morning, Noon & Night.
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Wikipedia