Barossa Co-op grows to largest member-owned shopping complex in Australia from 1944 in the valley's Nuriootpa
The expanded Barossa Co-op shopping centre, with more than 23,000 members in 2023, started from a single general store (inset) in Nuriootpa in 1944.
Barossa Co-op became Australia’s largest and longest-standing retail cooperative, starting in 1944 as a single general store selling an array of goods and services in the main street of Nuriootpa in South Australia’s Barossa Valley.
It grew to multiple retail businesses in a regional shopping centre which the cooperative membership grew from 771 in 1945 to more than 23,000 in 2023.
In 1943, when local store owner Harold Sheard received news of the death of his son Lauri, in New Guinea, he and his wife Rose decided to sell up and leave the region. At the time, a group of local community leaders had been seeking a way to rekindle community spirit amid the wartime difficulties in Nurioopta that, with Tanunda, was the most German of the Barossa Valley towns.
The short-lived progressive Adelaide movement, the Common Cause movement, arranged a visit by future Labor prime minister Ben Chifley to Nuriootpa in 1944 which led him, inspired by its approach, to promote the town as a model for community cooperation.
A Nuriootpa cooperative was formed to buy Sheard’s Store with an initial issue of 7,500 £1 shares. The cooperative, legally set up in 1944, was owned by its members for the members, to support the community’s growth and development.
The original store had a total of five departments: drapery, clothing, hardware and furniture, boots and grocery. By 1952, with the growing population of Nuriootpa and the Barossa Valley boosting sales, the cooperative decided to move from over-the-counter sales to self service. It became a franchisee for the independent Foodland supermarket chain and transformed its old grocery department into a modern supermarket. The supermarket was accompanied by old buildings near the The Co-op store being demolished to make way for parking for 200 cars.
A new and expanded supermarket opened in1965 but was beaten by the opening of a new Woolworths supermarket at nearby Tanunda two days earlier. The new Co-operative supermarket was such a success that the Woolworths supermarket chain withdrew from the Barossa Valley within two years.
In 1986, The Co-op embarked on a two-million-dollar renovation, expanding the supermarket by about 900 square metres and included a modern serviced delicatessen area with fresh fish and an innovation: a chicken rotisserie. The new complex was named the Barossa Regional Shopping Centre, to “encompass the whole Barossa Valley area and express the regional nature of the Centre”. The Foodland supermarket was next relocated to the new shopping centre and opened as Foodland Barossa Fresh in 1998.
With continued community demand and after many years of extensive community consultation and detailed planning, the construction of the new shopping centre started in 2016. This included a new and again-expanded Barossa Fresh Foodland supermarket. Millions of dollars was poured into continued exapansion.
In 2020, the supermarket bakery was awarded the national Metcash bakery department of the year. In 2021, seven departments of the supermarket were announced as finalists in the Metcash state awards. These included bakery (again), deli, meat, fresh produce and dairy/freezer. The store was also nominated for store of the year.
In 2021, the Barossa Co-op ended its 57-year agreement with Foodland and became South Australia’s largest independent regional supermarket as Barossa Fresh. Generating annual revenue of around $67 million, the Co-op returned around $1.5 million in member rebates each year.
