The S Group (, ) is a Finnish

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

ing

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

organisation with its head office in

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

. Founded in 1904, it consists of 19 regional cooperatives operating all around Finland in addition to SOK, ''Suomen Osuuskauppojen Keskuskunta'' (The Central Finnish Cooperative Society). S Group operates in the markets for

groceries A grocery store (American English, AE), grocery shop or grocer's shop (British English, BE) or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food Product (business), products, which may be Fresh food, fresh or Food p ...

, consumer durables, service station,

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

and

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

services. It is engaged in close competition with Kesko, with which it shares an oligopolistic position in many of the markets it operates in. The group has businesses in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

and

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. The S Group also had businesses in

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

and

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

, but announced withdrawal from these markets in May 2017. It also withdrew from the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n market in 2022. The organisation's member (loyalty) card is called ''S-Etukortti''.

Ownership

A client can invest a small sum on the local co-operative and become a client-owner. (The exact sum is decided by the local co-operative board and varies significantly depending on local conditions.) A client-owner gets a membership card, ''S-Etukortti'', which functions as a debit or credit card and gives access to special client-owner bargains. For the sums spent in S Group stores, ''Bonus'' is paid back to the client into the account at S-Bank. The ''Bonus'' percentage varies from 1% to 5% depending on the sum spent. S-Bank pays an interest that is competitive with interests paid by general banks into savings accounts. ''S-Etukortti'' is not a regular "loyalty card" as it represents actual monetary investment and the return is formally profit, not discount.

Corporate

In 2012, 35 Members of Parliament were representatives in the S Group or Tradeka (Siwa) corporate governance.

Local co-operatives

The S Group consists of 19 regional co-operative enterprises and 7 local co-operative enterprises. In total, these had 2.4 million individual members in 2018, a number that has grown from 1.2 million in 2003. In 2018, 329 million euros of ''Bonus'' was paid.

Supermarkets

The S Group operates five distinct chains of

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

s: * '' Sale'' – a chain of small grocery stores, mainly located in the countryside, small towns and suburbs with an emphasis on service rather than selection. Sale stores often only provide everyday groceries. There are about 240 Sale stores in Finland. * '' Alepa'' – this is the equivalent for ''Sale'' in the Greater Helsinki region – there are about 110 Alepa stores in

and the neighbouring cities. * ''S-market'' – larger supermarkets with a better selection of goods for sale, and often providing additional services. This is the largest of the S Group's supermarket chains, with nearly 400 stores around Finland. According to HOK-Elanto cooperative, Klaukkala would get another S-market in addition to the existing one, but it will become the largest S-market to match its size and product range with ''Prisma''. * '' Prisma'' – a

hypermarket A hypermarket or superstore is a big-box store combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full grocery lines and general merchandise. In ...

chain with about 90 stores around

and

in major cities. Formerly, the chain also operated in Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. *Food Market Herkku - premier food market operating in the Finnish metropolitan area (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa), Oulu, Tampere and Turku. The largest sales revenues are from S-market's (49%) and from Prisma's 39%. The S Group's supermarkets retail the general private brands ''Rainbow'' and ''Kotimaista'' for products made in Finland, and the no-frills ''X-tra'' range in partnership with Coop Trading — a Nordic purchasing organisation for co-operatives. Non-food products are marketed under the ''House'' name. The S Group has grown significantly in Finland in recent years, growing both organically and by acquisition.

Modernist architecture

SOK has a key position in the history of Finnish architecture due to its policy in the late 1920s and 1930s of designing cutting-edge

Modernist architecture Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, or the modern movement, is an architectural architectural movement, movement and architectural style, style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco Architectu ...

, epitomized by a Functionalist aesthetic of white buildings. The style is called ''osuuskauppafunkis'' (Co-operative Store Functionalism) in Finland. The key architect designing for SOK in the initial years was Erkki Huttunen (1901–1956), who designed various types of buildings for the company: from grain silos and mills to local village shops. Among his best-known works for SOK are the Toppila mill (1929, ''pictured right''), the SOK Offices and Warehouse (1937-38) in Oulu, the SOK Offices and Warehouse (1931) in Rauma, and the Aitta Cooperative Shop (1933) in Sauvo. Today, many of these buildings are protected by law.Jokinen, Teppo (1992). ''Erkki Huttunen liikelaitosten ja yhteisöjen arkkitehtina 1928–1939''. Jyväskylä Studies in the Arts, 41. Jyväskylä: Jyväskylän yliopisto.

Other fields

The S Group also operates the '' Sokos'' chain of

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

s, ''ABC'' service stations, the

chain '' Sokos Hotels'', several brands of

s such as ''Rosso'', ''Sevilla'' and ''Amarillo'', the ''Agrimarket'' chain, which sells

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

and DIY supplies, and a number of

car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

dealerships for

Peugeot Peugeot (, , ) is a French automobile brand owned by Stellantis. The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was established in 1810, making it the oldest car company in the world. On 20 November 1858, Émile Peugeot applie ...

S-Bank

The S Group operates Finland's first so-called ''supermarket bank'', the S-Bank (S-Pankki Oy).

References

External links

S-Kanava
– The company portal
S-Kanava
– The company portal
S-Kanava
– The company portal {{Supermarkets in Lithuania Cooperatives in Finland Supermarkets of Finland Retailers' cooperatives