Chelmsford Star
Moulsham Street, Chelmsford CM2 0LS, UK £26,500 per annum Permanent Advertised on: 21/07/2025 Moulsham Street, Chelmsford CM2 0LS, UK £30,000-£35,000 per annum + branch commission Permanent Advertised on: 21/07/2025 Broomfield Road, Chelmsford CM1 1SS, UK £12.43 per hour + additional payments for out-of-hours cover Permanent Advertised on: 12/06/2025
So, you’d like a job with Chelmsford Star? Good choice!
Chelmsford Star is a co-operative society owned by its members, which means we reinvest our profits back into our communities and follow strict ethical values. There are many different co-ops across the UK, and ours operates independently and within Essex only. We’re always looking for new faces to join our team, of any age and from any background.
We employ approximately 850 colleagues across our 4 trading divisions; Co-op food shops, Quadrant department stores, Co-op travel agents and Co-op funeral directors. Plus our Head Office, based in Chelmsford, covers functions as diverse as administration, human resources, IT, maintenance, finance, marketing and member events.
We have a wide range of job opportunities available, with flexible working patterns to suit our team. We also provide training opportunities for our workforce, and prefer to promote from within. Courses available including bespoke training, both in stores and on-line, and National qualifications in our accredited centre.
Employee benefits
As a Chelmsford Star Co-operative Society employee, you are part of a successful team with the following benefits:
1. Weekly pay
2. Society membership
3. Staff discount
4. Career progression
5. A variety of training to suit individual jobs
6. Accredited qualifications
7. Flexible working
8. Self-contributory pension scheme
9. Self-contributory health plan schemes
10. Death in service
11. Long Service Awards (after completion of 5 years)
Our Co-op Values!
Our Beliefs
Whilst many corporate businesses have added a ‘social responsibility’ box to their corporate requirements over the last few years, Chelmsford Star Co-op has upheld a strong set of co-op ‘values and principles’ ever since we were set up in 1867. Being good people is simply in our DNA.
These values and principles are our moral code, and they have ensured our Society’s decision-making has always remained ethical, in the best interest of our members, and right for the communities we live in.
Our Values
We’ve always believed in a strict set of moral values: equality, honesty and openness, self-help and self-responsibility, democracy, solidarity and caring for others. Our founders wrote these terms into our policies right from the start, back in the 19th Century! It’s what makes Chelmsford Star a ‘society’ rather than simply any other business.
For instance, our female members have always been able to vote in our elections, fifty years before the suffrage movement. We have a long record of equal pay, an even gender mix, and we were one of the first organisations in Essex to have a female president. Our annual dividend payout is based on everyone having an equal share in our business, and has always ensured members are rewarded based on their involvement, not on their background, demographic or circumstances.
From 19th century donations to infirmaries across Essex, and local support during coal shortages and cattle plagues, up to the assistance we now provide hundreds of community groups in the region, we’ve been helping good causes for over 150 years. We shouted about ‘Fairtrade’ before it officially existed, supported the LGBT+ community before it was considered to make ‘good business sense’ and have raised countless thousands of pounds of funds for charities across the region since the 1800s. We’ve calculated that 30p in every £1 spent in our shops is currently used to support the Essex economy in some way.
We do this because we chose to, and because Chelmsford Star Co-op was designed specifically for this reason.