On 8 March, drs. Pieter Steenbergen presented his book ‘Van ons, voor ons’ (By us, for us. Subtitle: 150 years of resilience of consumer cooperative Coop). The book presentation marks the end of a research project at the SEICA research group to the history of consumer cooperatives in the Netherlands. It also heralds the disappearance of the name Coop from the Dutch cityscapes, because of the merger between the Plus and Coop supermarkets into the new cooperative Plus U.A. The book is available online.

The book presentation was led by Hans Stapel, specialist of cooperative affairs at Plus, which enabled the realization of the book. Dr. Ton Duffhues, former member of research group SEICA, put the history of Coop in a larger societal an historical framework. After a few words by the writer about the creation process of the book, Karin Janssen, the last chair of Coop Netherlands and currently a board member of Plus, presented the book officially to Wilt Meendering, consumer-member of the new cooperative. All parties concluded that ‘Van ons, voor ons’ is not only a thorough historical work, but also a nice browsing book.