 Within three months, they expanded their selection to include tea and tobacco, and they were soon known for providing high quality, unadulterated goods.The Co-operative Group formed gradually over 140 years from the merger of many independent retail societies, and their wholesale societies and federations.In 1863, twenty years after the Rochdale Pioneers opened their co-operative, the North of England Co-operative Society was launched by 300 individual co-ops across Yorkshire and Lancashire.