The field of interest of this paper is business conduct and business planning within the context of cooperatives. There will be special emphasis on the effect of decentralized managment, considering that the cooperatives are a union of people rather that a union of capital like the more traditional joint stock companies. Democratic way of decision making, leads to a wide array of challenges and opportunities specific for the cooperatives, that will be further studied in this paper. In the first part of the paper, a theorethical framework will be set. A definition of cooperatives as an economic subject will be given along with a brief overview of the historical development of cooperatives. Afterwards, the specific aspects of business conduct in the cooperatives will be put within the theoretical framework of business planning. In the central part of the paper the example of a cooperative brewery ''Brlog'' will be intorduced. The paper will deal with the breweries development, its business strategy and plans for the future. Alongside of the analisys of the financial aspects of the company, the cooperative members will be interviewed in order to get a better overview of their motivation for joining and the nature of their previous engagement. This specific organization will serve as an example, of the kind of an effect decentralised decision making has on a cooperative. Last part of the paper will deal with the perspective of fututre development of cooperatives based on previous experiences. There will be special emphasis on the European Union policy regarding cooperatives and the way their particularities can be incorporated in the wider scope of sustainable development.