Co-op supermarket chain to stop sourcing goods from Israel, Iran and 15 other countries

Co-op Old Street, Shoreditch, May 2016

Middle East Eye reports on 25 June 2025:

The Co-operative Group, one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains, will stop sourcing goods from Israel, Iran, Russia and 14 other countries where it says there are “internationally recognised” rights violations.

The Co-op, which operates about 2,300 grocery shops in the UK, has listed about 100 products which it will stop sourcing – including Israeli carrots.

The retailer has announced it will gradually implement its ban – which covers countries including Syria, Belarus, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sudan – over the next month.  It said the list has been compiled based on “where there is agreement across respected assessments, such as by the UN and others, that there is consistent behaviour which would constitute community-wide human rights abuses or violations of international law”.

This comes after members of the Co-op voted to remove Israeli products from its shelves last month.  Around 73 percent of the consumer co-op’s members supported the non-binding motion that called on the board to show “moral courage and leadership” by banning Israeli products.

The motion cited a previous motion passed following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to “boycott Russian products”.  “We urge the board to show moral courage and leadership, apply the same ethical principles and values it did to Russia, and take all Israeli products off the shelves,” read the motion.

Campaigners with the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement have since 2005 called for consumers to boycott Israeli products until it complies with its obligations under international law.

There have been boycotts in many parts of the world against US companies over the country’s support for Israel.  Pakistan’s interior ministry said on Saturday that around 160 people had been arrested after groups of Palestine supporters carried out 20 separate attacks on KFC restaurants, with one employee shot dead.  Calls for boycott intensified after Israeli franchises of international brands, such as McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, offered free meals to Israeli soldiers at the start of the Gaza war.

Local franchises of such brands are usually operating on a licence basis, where a local company adopts the menu, uniforms, and branding of the company to sell to a local market.

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