Grocery Co-Ops Among Top 10

WASHINGTON - Grocery cooperatives captured four of the top 10 spots in NCB's annual list of the 100 largest cooperatives in the country, which was released on Tuesday.

NCB, which provides financing for co-ops, listed Skokie Ill.-based private-label cooperative Topco Associates as the largest of the grocery co-ops with $10.4 billion in 2010 revenues. It ranked third on the list of all cooperatives of any type, behind agricultural co-op CHS Inc., based in St. Paul, Minn., which was No. 1 again in this year's list, and No. 2 Land O'Lakes, also based in St. Paul.

The other grocery co-ops in the Top 10 included No. 5 Wakefern Food Corp., Keasbey, N.J.; No. 6 Associated Wholesale Grocers, Kansas City, Kan.; and No. 9 Unified Grocers, Los Angeles.

Altogether, grocery co-ops among the Top 100 tallied $43.35 billion in revenues in 2010, according to NCB, or about 22.4% of the $193.8 billion tallied by all co-ops in the U.S. last year.

Among the other grocery co-ops on the list were No. 16 Associated Wholesalers Inc., Robesonia, Pa.; No. 21 Central Grocers, Franklin Park, Ill.; No. 22 Associated Food Stores, Salt Lake City; No. 36 Affiliated Foods Midwest, Norfolk, Neb.; No. 40 Affiliated Foods of Amarillo, Texas; No. 55 URM Stores, Spokane, Wash.; No. 62 Piggly Wiggly Alabama, Bessemer; No. 63 Western Family Holding Co., Portland, Ore.; No. 76 Associated Grocers of Baton Rouge, La.; and No. 88 Associated Grocers of Florida, Pompano Beach.