Co-op Statistics

• 29 cooperatives have annual revenue in excess of $1 billion, including such well-known names as Land O'Lakes, Inc., and ACE Hardware. The top 100 co-ops have a combined $117 billion in revenues.
  
  
• Cooperatives range in size from large enterprises, including U.S. Fortune 500 companies, to single, small local storefronts.
  
  
• 270 telephone cooperatives provide service to two million households.
  
  
• Some 250 purchasing cooperatives offer group buying and shared services to more than 50,000 independents businesses.
  
  
• Nearly 10,000 U.S. credit unions have 84 million members and assests in excess of $600 billion.
  
  
• Cooperatives operate in every industry including agriculture, childcare, energy, financial services, food retailing and distribution, health care, insurance, housing, purchasing and shared services, telecommunications, and others.
  
  
• About 30 percent of farmers' products in the U.S. are marketed through more than 3,000 farmer-owned cooperatives.
  
  
• Approximately 900 rural electric cooperatives own and maintain nearly half of the electric distribution lines in the U. S., cover 75 percent of the land mass and provide electricity to 37 million people.
  
  
• More than 1,000 mutual insurance companies, with more than $80 billion in net written premiums, are owned by their policyholders.
  
  
• More than 6,400 housing cooperatives provide homes for 1.5 million households.
  
  
• U.S. co-ops serve some 120 million members, or 4 in 10 Americans.

— Statistics gathered from various sources as of March 2005.