You might have noticed that we do things a little differently here.
We are a consumer owned cooperative.
What does that mean exactly?
Cooperatives are businesses that are owned and democratically controlled by their members, and that exist to serve their members' economic interests.
While cooperatives are economically self-sustaining and able to turn a profit like any other businesses, their purpose is service, not profit. This distinction in purpose, along with the core principles under which they operate, render cooperatives the businesses equivalents of egalitarian states.
Taken together the 300 top cooperatives in 2008 were responsible for an aggregate turnover of 1.1 trillion USD which would make cooperatives as a group the 10th largest economy in the world.