10 October 2019 Local Co-operative customer winner after odds of one in half a million

Winner Josephine Ventham, who is a regular customer at The Co-operative Food, in Rose Green Road, says the win will enable her to go on holiday with her husband who is in a wheelchair.

It was to her disbelief when she received a call from Southern Co-op – the local, independent co-operative – telling her the goods news.

Josephine, a retiree, said: “I didn’t believe it at first. We are in the middle of trying to move home at the moment to be closer to our family so we have a lot to be thinking about.

“With my husband Malcolm in a wheelchair, you can imagine that going away is not easy.

“What we are going to do is use the cash for a holiday which we will organise ourselves as we need one that is wheelchair friendly. We might also wait a little while until things settle down.”

The prize was part of Southern Co-op’s Swipe and Win competition which enabled people to enter simply by swiping their membership card during a transaction.

During the competition entry period, there were 452,000 transactions where members swiped their cards making it nearly a one in a half a million chance of winning.

Four runners up were also chosen winning a Fitbit, a coffee machine, an Amazon Fire stick and £100 of in-store vouchers.

Southern Co-op has more than 250 food and funeral branches across the south of England and is owned by its 140,000+ members.

To find out more about becoming a member, visit www.thesouthernco-operative.co.uk/membership/.