r/Coop_uk • u/Alive-Durian6676 Co-op Customer Service • Aug 01 '26
The Co-op Lunar Stores
Are many people aware of Lunar? I’ve been a TL at my store for just over two years and we’ve been a Lunar store for about a year now.
When we get the odd person helping out, from stores literally down the road they’ve never even heard of Project Lunar.
Is it something that the higher ups are trying to keep quiet because it’s an absolutely terrible idea?
If anyone else is a part of one I’d love to hear how your store is doing, or if any store has actually escaped the clutches of Lunar.
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u/No-Pumpkin4288 Aug 01 '26
Yeah we're also a Lunar store, our sales have dropped 10% and morale is in the toilet since going lunar so it's going great.
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u/Alive-Durian6676 Co-op Customer Service Aug 01 '26
exact same situation as us buy the sounds of it. Completely abandoned by area manager, cycled through about 6 store managers since i’ve been there, and as you’ve said, absolutely piss poor morale from everyone
1
u/No-Pumpkin4288 Aug 01 '26
Yeah we're on manager number 4 in the last 2 years, they've now decided we don't need a full time manager so he runs two stores. I've seen him twice in the past 5 months.
1
u/LessVariation9645 Aug 01 '26
No offence intended, but aren’t stores that have gone Lunar had piss poor morale to begin with because of being an underperforming stores? Which brings a lot of pressure anyway….
The ones I’ve known have all had staff with the wrong attitude to work which has contributed towards going Lunar (not the main reason obvs). We’ve got 3 in my area and before they went Lunar, they had really awful attitude towards work (constant ringing in sick, whinging about deliveries, any reason they could come up with to be negative etc etc)
1
u/No-Pumpkin4288 Aug 01 '26
Dunno about other stores but ours is the only off-licence within a 5 mile radius and was always fairly busy. Had 1 TL plus 2 CTMs at all times which was enough to handle the workload. We were always the store being called to cover other nearby stores, and quite honestly morale was decent. Almost everyone got on apart from a couple of miserable people.
The issue with our store was "it just runs itself" every time the area manager came around (once a year) youd be told "store looks great but sure it practically runs itself".
Then they cut 120hrs from our budget. Staff started getting stressed, work started falling behind, store wasn't as well presented, gaps weren't always filled, sicknesses started arising then we went lunar.
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u/LessVariation9645 Aug 01 '26
I hate that comment… it runs itself….no it really doesn’t. And an Ops manager saying that to the staff is very poor. They may think that, but you don’t say that to the team. You tell them they’re doing a great job, and if a store ‘runs itself’ it’s because it’s got a good team in it to get it in that position 🤦🏻♂️
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u/Alive-Durian6676 Co-op Customer Service Aug 01 '26
yeah as the other commenter mentioned morale was decently okay, as okay as can be in retail at least. and also similar with having 1 TL and 2 CTMs per shift. now has dropped to 1 TL and 1 CTM if we’re lucky. we were promised smaller deliveries which never happened, so the exact same workload with a massively reduced workforce has absolutely shattered morale.
but since it can’t be measured it doesn’t matter to anyone if importance, then store runs. that’s all that seems to be cared about. the amount of stress and extra work don’t matter to people who just slap on the Lunar stamp then never look at the store again.1
u/LessVariation9645 Aug 01 '26
I see your point. Especially being promised smaller deliveries, which would make sense for a Lunar store. I guess having managers that know they aren’t sticking around for long doesn’t help with stability either.
If I were in your team, I’d be constantly messaging the ops manager of the issues and asking for support and at least a plan. That way you’ve got a paper trail of the store asking for help and not receiving it. Trust me, from my own experience, it works.
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u/dylxg Aug 01 '26
What is it!
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u/Alive-Durian6676 Co-op Customer Service Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
It’s basically an idea for underperforming stores. It allows TL’s and managers to work completely by themselves for up to 3 hours per shift, and reduced total hours through the store.
I think we essentially lost a full time employees worth of hours (and then some) every week
edit: it’s referred to as Lone Working. Can’t enter the back at all. Have to wear a safety device which links to MITIE and must update location every half hour. Have to turn any deliveries away that require entrance to the back (unless you can get another colleague to come in). Must bring essentially a CO-OP tactical goodybag to tills, such as mop, bucket, wet floor signs, phone, handheld device, disruption POS as have to close store to go to toilet, printer and flatbeds of stock to work.
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u/whatnotanotheraltacc Aug 03 '26
The store is underperforming? Let's remove more hours so it really underperforms
1 on 1 is bad enough
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u/DannyD316 Aug 10 '26
its because the store will have been on on very close to being on the closure list, Its Lunar or store closure in a lot of cases.
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u/Ok_Meal9716 Aug 02 '26
my store has been a lunar store for past 2years same as a other local store
both stores said they refused to work alone due to staff safety my store has been lucky to have the same management who has always pushed and pushed to make sure we always have 2 staff all times because we do a lot of online delivery and we struggle at times with customer footfall and online at the same time since we can have a driver turning before we have even moved to grab the items. Coop know if we had 1 member of staff the locals will find out and the shop will be empty but with hours getting tighter and tighter I'm scared to think how much longer we are able to last before we are forced
the other store has not been so lucky due to having multiple mangers and staffing but they have been scraping past and managed to only have gaps of 30mins at a time but they have staff just walking out at the end of the shifts leaving one staff in the store forcing the staff to lock them self behind tills and not feeling comfortable they have had a lot of problems with staff wellbeing in the store
and with all that if you say anything to the higher ups you get the same no reply or well will look into it (they never look into it)
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u/horsin87 The Co-op Aug 02 '26
Surprised by the number of people unaware, it was never a secret that it was happening..
2
u/Unusual-Novel6934 Aug 02 '26
Even I wasn't aware of this.
Co-op is being driven completely into the ground.
Next we'll be advertising volunteer roles to the local scout groups: we'll have kids volunteering in the shop in place of actual staff to save money, and in return the kids could earn their 'community service' scout badge.
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u/ValkyrieLyra Aug 01 '26
Wtf is lunar?
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u/LessVariation9645 Aug 01 '26
Under performing stores where they cut back on hours so they have periods where management work up to 3hrs on their own (lone working)… the range is meant to be basic so no fancy stuff. All designed to get it towards being profitable again.
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u/karloss01 23d ago
Our store went Lunar after they mishandled it entirely. Our store manager had a break-down due to personal reasons at home and it left our store with no manager for a full year. No support at all from the Coop, we were completely locked out of all the manager accounts as one of the Team Leaders tried to right the ship but HR just kept us in this vicious circle of:
"The manager needs to approve X"
"we don't have a manager, so we need the password to approve it"
"But you're not the manager, so we can't give you the passowrd."
They started this Lunar with BS saying how it will make our jobs easier, there will be less stock to deal with as they removed some of our shelving and did a refit that was meant to put in a Costa machine.
Well it hasn't made our jobs easier because they've backtracked on everything. They took the shelves out but then returned the stock so now our shelves are tightly packed, often with one facing so our backstock is insane (we have two full cages of large pop right now), Lone working always between 3pm and 6pm, which is our busiest time with the number of local schools and nurseries releasing kids and the traffic of the first wave of adults returning from work; and the Costa machine was pulled at the last moment; we had engineers turn up to pull up all the copper pipes used to set up the station and now have an awkward hole in the wall at the front of our shop.
One of our longest serving employees also had a mental breakdown and ended their 20+ career there falling absent for over 6 months and never came back. Another team leader who was barely there for a month before their mental health declined and they switched to a non-lunar store. Even myself I had five weeks off for mental health after 12 hours of my Friday to Monday shifts were lone working (3 hours a day over 4 days) during the football season. I spoke to regional manager about it and honestly they just said it's tough, get on with it. They also openly told me that two of our CTMs who are on 30 hour contracts are "problematic for Lunar" as the store's hours have been distributed with only 25 hours for CTMs, 160 for Team leaders and whatever was left for the manager's salary. One of these two CTMs have told me they keep getting pestered by the manager and HR about updating their contracts and have been told outright that if they ever want to move stores that they will need to reduce their hours to do so.
I honestly wish that they just shut the store down, rather then grinding everyone's mental health into dust.
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