The Co-op Store

A dairy was a small shop that mainly sold milk. They were very common in towns and cities in the 1930s, with around 2,000 dairies in Stockholm alone. Customers often brought their own containers that the shop assistants could pour the milk into. 

Fresh milk was delivered to the store every day in large 50-litre milk churns. The female assistants working in the dairy carried the heavy churns and lifted them up into the milk basin. A milk basin was shaped like a bathtub and was cooled using ice that was delivered to the shop by an iceman. The milk churns were stored there to keep the milk fresh throughout the day.

A ban on selling milk with other types of food

There were clear rules about what could and could not be sold at dairies. As well as milk, they also sold butter, margarine, cream, yoghurt, soft drinks and sweets. As the food was sold loose by weight or volume, it was important to avoid mixing different foods with each other for reasons of hygiene.

The Cooperative Society might have a dairy and bread shop next door to a meat shop, but with separate entrances. The ban on selling milk together with other foods was only lifted in 1953.

Around the same time, pre-packaged goods became more common and today’s grocery stores, where we pick our own food directly from the shelves, started to become the norm.

The Cooperative Society: conscious consumers and own-brand macaroni 

At the dairy, customers were served in accordance with the ideals of the Cooperative Society. The Cooperative Society was established in 1899, born out of a desire for better, cheaper goods. The idea was to achieve this through joint ownership and cooperation. Together, they set up consumer-owned stores, co-ops, where members could shop. 

At the Cooperative Society’s shops, everyone was to be treated equally: a big-spending customer must not be given priority over a child in the queue. It was also important that customers did not shop on credit, as they could easily get into debt. The Cooperative Society wanted to educate its customers to become conscious consumers, for example through courses and information in its own newspaper.  

To counteract monopolies, the Co-op also started producing its own products such as margarine, macaroni and crispbread. It also produced its own light bulbs, coffee and cash registers.  

A female workplace and cooperative solutions 

When Skansen decided to build a 1930s building with a hardware store and a home, there was room for another business. A decision was made to create a co-op store that could tell the story of a female workplace and the 1930s belief in cooperative solutions as a catalyst for social change.  

The Co-op Store is a collaboration with the Stockholm Cooperative Society (Coop Östra), and was opened in 2006. 

The Cooperative Society’s architect’s office and functionalism 

The exterior of the Co-op Store is modelled on a shop in Hudiksvall. The façade is clad in white horizontal panels, and the roof is painted red. 

The interior is a reconstruction based on plans from the Cooperative Society’s own architect’s office, which drew up plans for its shops. They were to have large windows so that the shop interior could be seen from outside. The walls were tiled in the style of the period. Tiles were easy to clean and suited the 1930s ideals of functionalism and hygiene.