1. The Co-op is Britain's biggest commercial farmer, with over 80,000 acres owned or managed by Co-operative Group (CWS) Limited.

2. The Co-operative Bank in the UK was the first clearing bank to introduce free banking for personal accounts in 1973.

3. Sean Connery earned a living driving a Co-op horse-drawn milk float in Edinburgh, Scotland before he turned to acting.

4. All Lurpak butter is produced by co-operative creameries in Denmark.

5. The Co-op has more shops than any other retailer in Britain.

6. The very first co-ops are thought to have been corn mills established in Woolwich and Chatham in the UK 80 years before the Rochdale Pioneers opened their famous Toad Lane store in 1844.

7. There are more than 750 million co-operative members in over 100 countries.

8. Wisden, the famous cricket almanac, used to be published by the Co-op when the sports goods manufacturer John Wisden & Co was owned between 1943 and 1970 by the UK's Co-operative Wholesale Society (now known as the Co-operative Group).

9. The Duke of Edinburgh was the first member of the Royal Family to officially open a Co-op building when he performed the ceremony at the Co-operative Insurance Society headquarters in Manchester, England in 1962.

10. One out of every three citizens of the United States is a member of a co-operative.

11. In the UK, the Co-op sells 30 million bottles of wine every year. Cheers!

12. 99 Tea is one of the biggest selling 'own brand' products in the world, serving the UK 5 million cups of tea every day.

13. In Moscow there is a Rochdale Street in honour of the Rochdale Pioneers who founded the Co-operative Movement.

14. In the UK Co-operative Retail Services merged with the Co-operative Wholesale Society on 2 April 2000 and the merged Society became Co-operative Group (CWS) Limited in January 2001.

15. Ocean Spray cranberry sauce and juices come from a cranberry-growers' co-operative in the USA.

16. When American farmers found the giant electricity companies would not supply them with power, they set up their own electricity co-ops to do it for them.

17. The Swiss have two giant consumer co-operative organisations, Co-op Switzerland and Migros; Migros was one of the first European businesses to have an environment policy.

18. Nearly all Canadian wheat is sold through agricultural co-operatives.

19. Credit unions, which are savings and lending co-operatives, are the world's most popular form of co-op and are one of the fastest growing financial institutions in Britain.

20. 'Co-operative Prices' was the slogan used in early press adverts by Charles Henry Harrod, founder of the famous Knightsbridge store, when in the 1860s he found himself in competition with the growing Co-operative Movement.

21. Thomas Hughes and Charles Kingsley, the authors of the Victorian classics Tom Brown's Schooldays and The Water-Babies respectively, were among the keenest supporters of co-ops in the middle of the last century.

22. The Co-op opened Britain's first fully self-service store in March 1948 in Albert Road, Southsea.

23. Associated Press (AP), the international news agency, is a co-operative.

24. The Co-op is Britain's biggest funeral director, conducting more than 160,000 funerals every year.

25. The most popular beer in the Houses of Parliament is produced by a co-op, Northern Clubs Federation Brewery.

26. After Britain, the largest consumer co-ops in the world are in Japan.

27. Europe's second biggest bank, Crédit Agricole, is a co-operative owned by French farmers.

28. In the UK, Co-op travel agents sell more than a million holidays every year.

29. The Co-op is in the Guinness Book of Records for producing the World's Biggest Pancake, which was baked in 1994 as part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the Rochdale Pioneers.

30. Many remote villages in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland have a Co-op store where no other major retailer would consider business worthwhile.

31. One of the UK's leading independent shoemakers - Equity Shoes - is a co-op, owned by the workers in partnership with other co-operative societies.

32. The UK's Co-operative Bank was founded in 1872 as the Loan and Deposit Department of the Co-operative Wholesale Society.

33. There are about 1,500 worker co-operatives in Britain, owned and controlled by the people who produce the goods and services.

34. The world organisation for Co-ops, the International Co-operative Alliance, was founded in London in 1895.

35. The UK Government-backed Co-operative Commission produced its report - The Co-operative Advantage - in February 2001 which made recommendations as to how the Movement could thrive in the twenty-first century.

36. One of the biggest wholefood distributors in Britain, Yorkshire-based Suma, is a worker co-op.

37. The first agricultural co-operative to be formed in Britain was registered in 1867.

38. All Co-operative Insurance Society profits are used for the sole benefit of policyholders, apart from the limited interest payable on its nominal share capital.

39. At a Special Congress in Manchester, England in November 2001, to discuss the recommendations of the Co-operative Commission, United Norwest Co-op (then the second largest consumer co-op in the country after the Co-operative Group) announced it was to join the buying group, the Co-operative Retail Trading Group.

40. The British Co-operative Movement employs more than 100,000 people.

41. Henry Pitman, brother of the shorthand inventor Sir Isaac Pitman, started one of the first co-operative periodicals, The Co-operator, in 1860.

42. The Co-op owns the UK's national footwear chain Shoefayre which operates from 365 outlets throughout the country.

43. There are more than 500 agricultural co-operatives in Britain.

44. The comedian Les Dawson, who died in 1993, got his first job after leaving school with the Co-operative Wholesale Society in Manchester, England.

45. The retail and distributive workers' union USDAW, which is based in Manchester, England, began as a trade union exclusively for Co-op employees.

46. In 1999 The Co-operative Bank launched smile, Britain's first purpose-built current account Internet banking service.

47. New Lanark, the Scottish village where Robert Owen put into practice the socio-economic experiment which resulted in him being called 'the father of co-operation', is now a World Heritage site.

48. The actor Richard Burton first earned a living selling men's suits at the Co-op in South Wales, UK.

49. In Spain, Brazil and Japan co-operatives provide health care for members, running their own hospitals and clinics.

50. One of the earliest co-operative advocates was Dr William King, a Brighton physician, whose publications inspired many working people to set up co-ops.

51. The International Co-operative Alliance is one of the few global voluntary federations which managed to maintain contact with all its members through two world wars.

52. Japanese co-ops have built a replica of the Rochdale Pioneers' first Toad Lane store at their training centre in Kobe; it's twice the size of the original building.

53. The Co-operative Bank was the first major British financial organisation to announce an ethical policy, in 1992, which clearly states with whom it will and will not do business.

54. One of the first times Greta Garbo appeared on the silver screen was in "Our Daily Bread", a publicity film made in the early 1920s by the Co-op in Sweden.

55. There are 442 million Co-op members in Asia.

56. Robert Owen, the Welsh social reformer, is often described as the "Father of Co-operation" because of the inspiration he gave to early Co-op leaders.

57. The Co-operative Insurance Society headquarters in Miller Street, Manchester, is one of the ten tallest buildings in Britain.

58. The Rochdale Pioneers Museum - where the Co-operative Movement was first established - was closed for several years during the 1970s for major structural repairs.

59. In Sweden almost all the forestry industry is run on co-operative lines.

60. Italian co-operators once named a railway locomotive after the Rochdale Pioneers; unfortunately they misspelt the name 'Rochade'.

61. Co-operative Wholesale Society factories built Hamilcar gliders for the British forces during the Second World War.

62. In the UK, the Co-operative Union and the Industrial Common Ownership Movement merged in 2001.

63. In the financial year ending January 2000, CIS, part of the Co-operative Group in the UK, recorded total premium and unit trust income of £2,461 million.

64. The most southerly consumer co-operative store in Britain is in the Channel Islands and the most northerly at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.

65. There is a Co-op for employees in the Emperor's Palace in Japan.

66. There are over 5,000 different Co-op Brand lines sold exclusively in co-operative stores in Britain.

67. In 2001 the borough of Rochdale, Lancashire, UK - the birthplace of co-operation - launched a credit union - Streetcred.

68. In the 2001 UK General Election a record number of Labour/Co-operative MPs were elected - 29.

69. More than half the income of the northern Italian town of Imola is generated by businesses run on co-operative lines.

70. The Woodcraft Folk, the co-operative youth auxiliary, has 700 groups throughout Britain.

71. Co-operative milk tokens, which used to be left on the doorstep instead of cash to pay the milkman, have become collectors' items which are eagerly sought and exchanged.

72. The first vessel to sail up the Manchester Ship Canal in the UK after its opening on January 1 1894 was the CWS ship SS Pioneer.

73. In the UK, none of the products in the Co-op's health and beauty care range has been tested on animals.

74. For the centenary of the Co-operative Movement in 1944 a specially-written pageant was performed throughout Britain; among the cast of the Rochdale production was a young Cyril Smith, later to become the town's famous MP.

75. The Russian composer Khachaturian wrote his famous Sabre Dance to celebrate a farming co-operative in the USSR.

76. The Co-operative Group in the UK has banned fox-hunting with hounds on its land since 1982.

77. In 2001, after a ten year absence from the UK mortgage market, The Co-operative Bank launched a 'green' mortgage package.

78. A co-op produces Swiss-style Gruyère cheese at San Cristobál Totonicapán, Quetzaltenango Province, Guatemala.

79. When private businesses refused to supply the Co-op in the UK with radios in the 1930s, claiming they were being sold too cheaply, the CWS established its own brand - appropriately named Defiant.

80. Bisham Abbey, UK, the family seat of E V Neale, first General Secretary of the Co-operative Union, is now the headquarters of the National Sports Council.

81. Britain's international singing star Gracie Fields helped to make the Co-op famous with her HMV recording 'Come and Shop at the Co-op Shop'.

82. Founded in 1871, the Co-operative News is the world's longest established co-operative newspaper.

83. Stanley Matthews brand football boots were manufactured for many years at the CWS footwear factory in Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, England.

84. Playwright Alan Bennett's father was a Co-op butcher in Bradford, England.

85. Actress Su Pollard used to work for the Member Relations Department of the Co-op in Nottingham, England.

86. The UK's Nationwide Building Society started life in 1884 as the Co-operative Permanent Building Society.

87. During the 1920s in the UK the Co-operative Wholesale Society began manufacturing its own bicycles, motorcycles and even a car - which was sold under the trade name Bell.

88. One of the most southerly Co-ops in the world is the co-operative store at Stanley, capital of the Falklands Islands.

89. Music hall star Bud Flanagan held his wedding breakfast at the Co-op Café in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England - it cost him 6 shillings and 3 pence, plus a ninepenny tip for the waitress, in November 1924!

90. 'The Co-operative Republic of Guyana' is the official name of this South American country.

91. In 2001 the Co-operative College in the UK left Stanford Hall near Loughborough, which had been its home since 1945.

92. The father of Magnus Magnusson, the BBC's Mastermind presenter for many years, was the Icelandic Co-operative Movement's first permanent representative in the UK.

93. In 2001, the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside launched the UK's first students union co-op.

94. Holland has a National Co-operative Museum in Schiedam, near Rotterdam.

95. The famous Army & Navy Store in London's West End was founded as a co-operative society in 1871 to serve the needs of military and naval officers.

96. The cross-Channel ferry operator Brittany Ferries was founded by a Breton agricultural co-operative.

97. British consumer co-operatives created the world's first industry-based vocational training scheme for retailing and distribution.

98. One of the most famous landmarks on the Stockholm waterfront is the Katerina building owned by the Swedish co-operative organisation KF.

99. The co-operative economic sector has 1.8 million employees in Europe.

100. The Co-operative Women's Guild was in its early years one of the most important women's campaigning organisations in the world, and women still benefit today from some of its successful campaigns.

101. Since the Co-operative Movement began, at least £40 billion of profits at today's prices have been distributed to British members in dividend and other benefits.

Compiled by Iain Williamson December 1999 and updated by Julia Youd-Thomas, January 2001