Competition between organisational forms in Danish and Irish dairying around the turn of the twentieth century

Abstract

By 1914, Danish butter had captured a sizeable share of the British market, largely at the expense of Irish suppliers. This is usually attributed to a more successful adoption of the cooperative organisational form, where cultural and legal issues put the Irish at a disadvantage. We argue that there were also significant differences in the private sector in the two countries, where large incumbent proprietary creameries in Ireland were in a stronger position to defend their interests. Even if the cooperatives were able to operate like their Danish counterparts, they would still have faced much tougher competition from proprietary incumbents.