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Daily Bread Co-operative

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daily Bread Co-operative is an English Christian workers' co-operative specialising in packing and selling wholefoods. It was the first workers' co-operative to register under what is now known as the "white rules", and is listed as Co-op number 1 under the Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM), which now forms part of Co-operatives UK. One of the founding members, Roger Sawtell, was the first chair of ICOM.

History

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Daily Bread began in the Northampton parish of St. Peter's, Weston Favell when a group of nine friends formed the idea of taking their Christian beliefs and values into the business environment.[1] The name chosen comes from a line in the Lord's Prayer.

Daily Bread Co-operative (DBC) was registered as a limited company in March 1976,[2] the first business of its kind to adopt a new set of Model Rules for Common Ownership.[citation needed] It was a further four years before trading started, on 1 October 1980, in what was once the laundry of St. Andrew's Hospital, reputedly the largest privately owned psychiatric hospital in the country.

Daily Bread, Cambridge

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Daily Bread has served as a model for other co-operatives and wholefood sellers, including the Unicorn Grocery. Daily Bread in Cambridge opened in 1992 with a staff of five, one ex-member from Northampton and four other full-time members. Its structure is similar to Daily Bread in Northampton, and the Cambridge enterprise was given permission to trade under the original name and to use the co-operative's logo.

References

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  1. ^ "Doing good and making money". 2017-10-06. Retrieved 2021-11-10.
  2. ^ Elfrida Calvocoressi, "Leadership in Peacemaking: A Christian View" in Luk Bouckaert & Manas Chatterji (eds), Business, Ethics and Peace, Emerald Group Publishing Limited (2015) ISBN 978-1-78441-877-9. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
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