Coop Denmark has announced that it has launched a new online shop via Coop Crowdfunding, where small Danish food producers will be able to sell their goods directly to consumers.
Earlier this year, Coop launched a temporary webshop to help small, pandemic-affected producers to sell goods directly via Coop Crowdfunding as part of its Restart Denmark plan.
Between April to 1 July, more than 100 companies created 180 different projects on the temporary webshop to sell their goods.
The platform saw more than 4,000 customers buying goods from small manufacturers impacted by the pandemic.
Rapidly Growing Market
Head of Coop Crowdfunding, Nicolai Jæpelt, added, “The coronavirus crisis has taught us that there is a rapidly-growing market for products that are still too small to be sold through our stores.”
The experience from this initiative inspired the retailer to develop a permanent online marketplace.
Jæpelt believes that this marketplace will boost the Danish food industry and lay the foundation for the growth of local groceries.
'A Bigger Player'
“Our hope is that we will see manufacturers grow so large that they can later enter our nationwide chains. In the long run, we also expect that our webshop can become a bigger player,” he added.
Launched in 2017, Coop Crowdfunding has so far secured financing for more than 400 projects within the Danish food and grocery industry.
Danes have raised a total of around DKK 25 million through tendered projects on this platform, the retailer added.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
