Retailer file · coop.ch
Buy from Coop
anywhere in the world.
One of Switzerland's two dominant retail cooperatives. Supermarket, department store, wine merchant and the parent of several specialist chains.
Coop is where Swiss food actually comes from, and food is the hardest thing to export. The retailer will not ship abroad, but the real constraint is your destination's import rules on dairy, meat and honey — which refuse more Coop orders than any payment or address wall ever does.
The checkout wall
Where Coop stops you,
and how we get through.
These are the gates a foreign buyer hits at this checkout, in the order they hit them. Left is the wall as the retailer states it. Right is what we actually do about it.
Online delivery is available within Switzerland only.
Delivered to our warehouse. For fresh categories we time the order to arrive on a dispatch day rather than sit.
Swiss cards, TWINT and the Coop Supercard account. Foreign cards are usually rejected.
Paid on our Swiss account, with Supercard points applied and passed back as a discount on your invoice.
No screening of any kind. The retailer sells you dairy, meat and honey without knowing or asking where it is going.
This is the gate that matters. We check every food line against your destination's rules and refuse the ones that will be seized, before you have paid for them.
Chilled and frozen goods are sold for domestic delivery on the same day. Nothing is packed for a multi-day export lane.
Shelf-stable only as a rule. Chocolate ships insulated with cold packs from May to September. Fresh and frozen we decline outright.
Till receipt only. Food exports frequently need more than that.
Commercial invoice, packing list, ingredient and origin declarations, and health attestations where the destination requires them.
Worth buying
What Coop is actually good for.
The Swiss pantry, minus everything that will be confiscated at the other end.
- ✓Chocolate, at supermarket pricesThe same brands sold in airport shops at three times the price. Frey, Lindt, Cailler and Coop's own lines.
- ✓Shelf-stable Swiss staplesAromat, Cenovis, Rivella, Ovomaltine, Thomy, Zweifel. Cheap, light and legal almost everywhere.
- ✓Hard AOP cheese, where permittedGruyère and Emmental aged well past sixty days clear most destinations. We check yours first.
- ✓Wine and spirits, to permitted countriesCoop is a serious wine merchant. Excise and licensing rules decide whether we can help.
- ✓Coop Vitality pharmacy linesSwiss over-the-counter products with no distribution in most countries.
- ✓Betty Bossi cookware and booksA Swiss institution that is close to unobtainable outside the country.
Not worth buying
What we will not buy here.
Refusals in this category are constant and they are the point. A refused order costs you nothing; a seized one costs you the goods.
- ✕Fresh, chilled and frozen anythingIt will not survive the lane, whatever the packaging.
- ✕Meat and cured productsProhibited or licence-controlled in most of our destinations. Dried and vacuum-packed are included.
- ✕HoneyRefused almost universally under biosecurity rules. Australia and New Zealand in particular.
- ✕Soft and raw-milk cheeseUS rules exclude cheese aged under sixty days. Japan and Australia restrict dairy further still.
- ✕Alcohol to the GulfProhibited, including liqueur fillings in confectionery.
- ✕Anything containing seeds or untreated plant matterBiosecurity risk goods. Souvenir items are a frequent and avoidable seizure.
Practical notes
What our buyers know
about Coop.
Accumulated from running orders through this retailer. Most of it is the kind of thing you only learn by getting it wrong once.
Start here
Send a Coop link.
Get the landed cost.
Paste the product page, tell us where it is going, and we return a full breakdown — goods, Swiss VAT refunded, our fee, freight, duty and import tax — before you commit to anything.
No account needed for a quote. A Swiss buyer verifies stock and price before we charge you anything.
One payment, in your own currency1×
Questions
Buying from Coop, answered.
Can you send Swiss cheese to my country?
Sometimes, and it depends entirely on where you are and which cheese. Hard AOP cheeses such as Gruyère and Emmental are aged well beyond the sixty-day threshold the US applies and clear many destinations. Soft and raw-milk cheeses usually do not. Japan and Australia restrict dairy more tightly again. Tell us the destination and we will check the specific product before quoting.
Why do you refuse orders other forwarders accept?
Because a forwarder ships a sealed box without knowing what is inside. We buy the goods, so we know exactly what is in the parcel, and shipping something we expect to be destroyed at the border would be taking your money for a service we know will fail. Refusing costs you nothing.
Will chocolate melt?
Not with the right packing. From May to September we ship chocolate insulated with cold packs at no extra charge, and we advise on arrival timing. Some products still will not travel — fresh cream fillings such as Luxemburgerli do not survive at any time of year, and we say so rather than take the order.
Can I order Swiss wine?
To some destinations. Alcohol brings excise duty, licensing and sometimes outright prohibition, and the rules vary sharply — the Gulf states prohibit it entirely, while several others simply make it expensive. We will tell you which applies to you before quoting.
Tell us what Swiss food you want. We will tell you what can travel.
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