Case Study: The Co-operative Food achieves unified, 24x7 reliable B2B trading with OpenText Trading Grid

Co-Operative Food Transforms Business And Manages High Volume Of Supplier Invoices With Opentext™ Trading Grid™

The Co-operative Food, the grocery arm of The Co-operative Group (70,000 employees and more than 3,500 outlets), faced a major systems-integration challenge after its £1.5 billion acquisition of Somerfield doubled its UK market share. Integrating two supplier networks and product ranges while continuing to process high volumes—about 70,000 electronic invoices weekly from roughly 1,400 suppliers—required a flexible, scalable trading network that would avoid disruption to the business.

The Co-operative deployed OpenText Trading Grid to mediate differing document formats and communications protocols (AS2/AS3, SFTP, FTPS), simplify supplier onboarding and mask technical complexity. The solution unified the B2B trading environment, supports about £85 million of invoices each week, runs 24x7 with minimal internal staffing (a four-person team) and delivered reliable, outsourced management that kept supplier transactions flowing throughout the post-acquisition integration.

The Co-operative Food

Alan Broadhurst

Solution Manager