There are over 3000 cooperatives and mutuals in Finland and cooperatives have almost 7 million memberships (the population of Finland is 5.5 million). Around 80 % of Finns are members of at least one cooperative.<\/p>\n
The joint turnover of cooperative companies and mutuals exceeded 35 billion euros in 2021. The cooperative groups are most often market leaders in their respective fields. The agricultural cooperatives have a market share of 97 % in milk and 80 % in meat. Consumer cooperatives cover more than 45 % of daily goods and the cooperative OP Financial Group is the largest retail banking company in Finland.<\/p>\n
Finland is perhaps the most cooperative country in the world. Cooperation was introduced to Finland in the turn of the 20th century. It started with the foundation of Pellervo – Confederation of Finnish cooperatives in 1899 and the first Cooperative Act came in to effect in 1901. Before that, there were only few cooperatives in Finland. Hannes Gebhard<\/strong> (1864-1933) is considered to be the father and his wife Hedvig Gebhard<\/strong> (1867-1961) the mother of the Finnish cooperative movement. Hannes was the founder and managing director of Pellervo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are over 3000 cooperatives and mutuals in Finland and cooperatives have almost 7 million memberships (the population of Finland is 5.5 million). Around 80 % of Finns are members of at least one cooperative. The joint turnover of cooperative companies and mutuals exceeded 35 billion euros in 2021. The cooperative groups are most often<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":887053,"parent":1899,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1905","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n