Co-op Franchise has opened three campus convenience stores this term, at Queen Mary University of London, the University of Leicester and the University of Glasgow. The Queen Mary shop is the first Co-op franchise store at a campus-based London university, according to the announcement, and the Glasgow store is in Scotland.
Retail Times reported the openings on 14 October 2026, describing Co-op Franchise as part of Co-op Wholesale. The Queen Mary store opened on 10 September, Leicester followed on 17 September, and Glasgow began trading on 23 September. In early September, The Grocer reported that Co-op had signed four 10-year franchise agreements with Queen Mary, Leicester, Sheffield and Durham, which the title said grew the university franchise estate by 50 per cent.
Three campuses in one term
All three stores are on campus. The announcement describes them as convenience stores designed around the needs of students, lecturers, staff and visitors, rather than a standard high street format.
Co-op opened its first university franchise store in 2019 and says it has worked with universities and students’ unions to expand steadily since, a campus route few food and drink franchises in the UK offer. Glasgow is the only one of the three in Scotland, where the other two are in England, so the stores sit across two of the UK’s four nations.
How the university model works
Universities and students’ unions that choose the model gain the Co-op brand, retail expertise, operational support, technology platforms and a national supply chain, according to the announcement. Its stated aim is to give partners a professionally managed convenience offer without requiring specialist retail experience of their own.
Co-op also links the model to higher education’s own priorities, citing its record on ethical business, sustainability and community impact. Melanie Crunkhorn, business development manager for franchise at Co-op Wholesale, said the three openings had been “welcomed with open arms” and that the stores were already trading well. Fees and agreement terms are not published in the announcement.
Which Co-op is involved
The Co-op name covers several different businesses, and the announcement attributes these stores to Co-op Franchise, part of Co-op Wholesale. Co-op Wholesale is the business formerly known as Nisa, which also supplies independently owned symbol-group stores under a supply partnership rather than a franchise. The independent co-operative societies, such as Central Co-op and Midcounties, are separate co-operatives in their own right.
Franchise or symbol group
The university stores are described as franchise agreements. A symbol-group store, by contrast, is owned by the retailer, who signs a supply agreement, the same arrangement behind the Peacocks and Bonmarché concessions inside Co-op shops. Co-op Wholesale, which also supplies symbol stores, carries the Co-op Franchise label in this announcement.
What the announcement does not say
The announcement gives no sales figures or set-up cost for a university store. Queen Mary and Leicester are two of the four universities in The Grocer’s September report, while Glasgow is not among them, so the two reports together name five universities: Queen Mary, Leicester, Sheffield, Durham and Glasgow.
The three openings fall in England and Scotland, and the announcement does not say whether further university sites are in the pipeline or how many campus stores Co-op now has in total.
