“Coop Breizh Have Gone Bust”
It is likely that without Coop Breizh, the producer and distributor of countless incredible recordings and books, this website would not exist, for Coop Breizh has been, for us, for more than 25 years, the primary conduit for an endless stream of affordable books and recordings that found their way reliably to our North American doorsteps. Now it’s all over and that is incredibly sad, another casualty in late-stage capitalism’s destructive move away from printed and recorded physical media.
Coop Breizh closed its doors on June 17th 2025, after 68 years of existence. The liquidation of the pillar of the book and recording industry in Brittany is having a devastating impact across the region. Coop Breizh was placed in judicial liquidation with immediate cessation of activity by the Commercial Court of Brest (Finistère). Thirteen employees lost their jobs.
The end of Coop Breizh puts many Breton publishers in trouble - particularly those whose physical stocks of books are still being held by the defunct entity. Legal action is reportedly being considered against the former management. Unpaid authors may claim their rights over their texts and illustrations.
The liquidation of Coop Breizh ended an incredible cultural adventure of nearly seven decades, with perhaps thousands of authors and artists published, edited, produced, and distributed. The Breton cultural world has lost the pre-eminent vehicle for dissemination of their material goods. The disappearance of the company, based in Spezed, is causing serious difficulties for the world of Breton publishing.
“In the absence of a valid recovery solution, there is no one to take over all or part of the company,” explained one of the directors. “We moved from receivership to liquidation with immediate effect. The company and its Lorient bookshop are closed. From now on, the baton will be taken up by the legal representative who will be responsible for liquidating the company’s assets in order to pay off the maximum amount of debt to creditors. The final shot was the retreat of potential investors. In a few days, we have gone from the hope of partially saving jobs to nothing. The cooperative society Coop Breizh is dead. It’s a real heartbreak after 68 years.”
Coop Breizh said on Tuesday afternoon after the decision, “If Coop Breizh stops, the fight must continue. In this difficult context, we hope that other structures will quickly take over to continue to bring and pass on to as many people as possible the cultural wealth of Brittany. ”
The reorganization of the company in the summer of 2024 resulted in the non-payment of suppliers for three months. The cost was high for many of these suppliers. For example, two local publishing houses have lost nearly 50,000 euros each. In other words, the finances of publishing houses that trusted the company have been heavily impacted, which could lead to layoffs, publisher disappearances or, at least, delaying editorial projects. The number of new publications should therefore be lower in the coming period.
Alternatives
In the meantime, the more polished publishers and broadcasters are organizing to set up a new collective, with a lawyer hired to push back the liquidator. This is probably not the only avenue, as legal action could also likely be taken against the former executives of Coop Breizh.
Palemon: After a disastrous retail summer of 2024, in the absence of communication from Coop Breizh, several publishers had already begun to look for alternatives. Indeed, after several years of decline, Coop Breizh was no longer the hegemonic presence that it had been. Palemon editions seem to have benefited most from the situation thus far, setting up an effective dissemination network in the five Breton departments part of Anjou, the English Channel, and the Vendée. Several publishing houses have since joined them. Based in Quimper, Palemon also agreed to distribute several publishers in the Breton language.
Arfolk is a new/old independent record label originally created in Lorient in 1967 by Jo Gragnic. Specializing in Breton music, the record company soon expanded to Celtic music. It was acquired by Coop Breizh in 1982, launching their expansion into the recordings space. The Arfolk label was recently recreated by Philippe Guillo and Romain Sponnagel in 2022, notably to support Breton recordings, and a stream of major acts such as Loened Fall have since migrated to the label. As mentioned in our article a while back, Coop Breizh wanted to break off the recording section and it appears that the revived Arfolk is the result, a fitting bookend to their involvement in recordings. Arfolk was spun off from Coop Breizh/brought back from the dead to acquire the Coop Breizh Musik catalog, but also to host other musical catalogs. Since July 1st, 2023, the Coop Breizh music catalog of more than 300 titles has been managed by Arfolk. The description of Sponnagel on the new Arfolk website states (translation ours), “After leading Coop Breizh Musik for seven years, Romain was at the helm of Arfolk's renaissance, and is now its director.” Arfolk is notable in that you can easily and reliably order recordings from their site, and they do actually show up!
Kidnapped stock?
A first meeting of the “vultures” of Coop Breizh took place on Tuesday, June 25th. It showed that the losses would amount to at least 200,000 euros. Some publishers had left their entire stock with the company, which until the end asked them to do so. “If the books are not given back, several businesses are in great danger of folding,” said Bernard Hommerie, who was present at the meeting. Some books will no longer be reprinted. In the inventory left at Coop Breizh, some books are old, but important for our culture and therefore will disappear from the bookstores. These books will be lost…”
Many publishers had withdrawn their stock from Coop Breizh as early as this autumn. Others, out of fidelity or solidarity, wanted to continue to provide goods. It should be noted that Coop Breizh’s executives and directors seemed to be waiting for a miracle buyer and thereby reassured their vendors that, at worst, they could recover their stock. Those who, until the end, trusted Coop Breizh were in for a bitter disappointment, receiving a letter on June 18th that they would not be able to recover their books. It states: “In accordance with articles L 614-9 et seq., the Commercial Code, any claim for the return of property in the context of a collective proceeding should have been submitted within three months of the publication of the judgement opening up the receivership (and not from the outset of the liquidation), or no later than December 22nd, 2024. This time limit is strict: after this period, requests are inadmissible.”
The liquidated stock will probably be sold off to discount distributors, so all of these books could end up on the bargain shelves of mass market outlets. One author told ATB, “Co-op Breizh have gone bust and no longer operate, causing havoc to many publishers and writers as they were the main distributors in Brittany. My publisher has not received money for a long time and the stock is still in their warehouse. It seems incredible when they did so many good things that the business seems to have been mismanaged.”
On the authors’ side, many were concerned about a possible buy-out of Coop Breizh’s publishing structure. Many of them recently received a letter from the representative informing them that he refused to pay their claim for the three-month period of the receiver’s receiver. Good news: they can approach organizations like the Society of Letters to ask for compensation. Another piece of good news is that this refusal to pay for copyrights breaks their publishing contract with Coop Breizh. The Ministry of Culture defines the contract as: “…whereby the author of a work assigns to a publisher, in return for remuneration, the right to manufacture innumerable copies of his work or to produce it in digital form, to be responsible for this publisher to ensure its publication and dissemination. As remuneration was not assured, the authors regain their rights to their works and may, if necessary, be published in another publishing house.”
The loss of Coop Breizh is quite messy, and is devastating for those that love this culture. We’ll be keeping a very close eye on the situation to see what new efforts sprout up in its absence.
~ Fañch
