At the firm's inaugural Co-operative Player of the Year awards, held at the ICC in Birmingham last Friday, food retail marketing director Debbie Robinson announced the business's intention to encourage its 2.5m members and customers to support the campaign, which is also backed by other countries' netball associations.
Robinson said: "Netball is the most popular team sport in the world for women, so in many ways it is unbelievable that it has not achieved Olympic status sooner."
In the UK, netball is played by more than 1m women and girls every week and is recognised as one of the main sports of the Commonwealth Games. However, despite the International Olympic Commission's recognition of netball as a sport, there are no plans to include it at the London 2012 games or beyond.
The Co-operative hopes that its support will add emphasis to the pro-netball lobby and influence the next review of the Olympic programme, which is due to take place in 2009.
Support for netball has come from a few quarters. According to the Daily Mirror, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has indicated that he would like to see netball included in the London 2012 programme as a showcase event.
England international netball player Eboni Beckford-Chambers has set up a Facebook group with the aim of gaining 500,000 signatures on a petition to get the sport a place at the 2012 Olympic Games.
The Co-operative sponsors the netball Superleague and was also the main sponsor of three recent match tests between England and Malawi.
Separately, The Co-operative Funeralcare has extended its sponsorship of the World Bowls Tour.