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The business environment of the EU dairy sector has altered drastically because of changes in EU agricultural and trade policy, consumer demand, and innovations since the turn of the millennium. This created new market income opportunities for dairy processors, but also fostered the necessity for investments to access these markets. A literature review sees cooperatives to be disadvantaged at this point, because their organisational structure hinders their access to external financial resources. Confronted with these equity constraints, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how German dairy marketing cooperatives adapted to the new business environment and have been performing from 2000 to 2012.

An approach combining descriptive data from public sources and financial ratio analysis was used to test hypotheses, derived from Transaction Cost Theory.

Contrary to assumptions, cooperatives gained market shares on the German dairy market. However, dairy cooperatives managed to overcome the internal equity constraints only partially via mergers, which intensified structural change. Focusing on cost leadership, German cooperatives were not able to successfully diversify their product portfolio and still operate mainly in the fluid, low margins dairy market segments. Frustrated by their diminishing influence on the decision making process in the vastly grown cooperatives, a majority of farmers cancelled their cooperative membership.

Until today an absolute turning point for the cooperative organisational form has not yet occurred, but if cooperatives do not find the means to invest more heavily in the new markets, a slow decline of cooperatives is expected.

The paper contributes to the existing literature on marketing cooperatives by providing insights on the performance of cooperatives through combination of from theory derived assumptions with qualitative and quantitative analysis methods.

The aim of this paper is to determine the relative importance of actual price and behavioural factors for the quality of the business relationship between German dairies and their milk suppliers.

The paper reports the results of field study involving 209 farmers in Lower Saxony and the northern section of North Rhine‐Westphalia regions in northwest Germany. These regions are the most important milk production centres in Germany.

The results indicate that, whereas behavioural factors, specifically relationship management practices and price satisfaction, have a positive influence on the quality of the business relationship between the farmers and the dairies, the actual price levels have no influence.

Actual prices paid to the farmers is not the most important factor which influences the quality of their relationship with the dairies but rather behavioural norms such as milk price satisfaction and relational norms. Dairies are advised to enhance price perception through price negotiations and transparency in order to facilitate quality relationship instead of through higher price payment alone.

This study is the first to integrate and compare the actual prices and behavioural variables to determine their relative importance and influence on relationship quality.

Agricultural-related food marketing claims are gaining in importance. The challenge for the industry is to claim real production characteristics while being in line with consumers’ expectations. Looking at the example of marketing pasture-raised milk year-round and the fact that cows only have access to pasture in summer, the purpose of this paper is to analyse consumer expectations, the potential of deception and the acceptance of more credible marketing strategies.

An online access panel was used for data collection. The data include 310 German milk buyers, who were grouped using cluster analysis to examine the different target groups for the year-round and seasonal marketing of pasture-raised milk.

The study distinguished two different consumer groups: one with lower expectations accepting year-round marketing (32.5 per cent) and the other with higher demands, who feel deceived by year-round marketing (46.7 per cent). Furthermore, one part of the last group is also sceptical towards the more precise seasonal marketing due to their general scepticism towards ag-related marketing claims.

To generate consumer trust in ag-related marketing claims, it is beneficial to meet consumers’ expectations. Producers have to decide if they orient their products to more modest or more critical consumer segments. While it is easier to implement lower standards, there is the risk to disappoint (and thereby lose) the most interesting target group of highly involved consumers characterised by some general doubts regarding food marketing claims.

The study is the first to demonstrate the existence of two consumer segments that differ in their expectations towards and acceptance of ag-related marketing claims for food products.

The paper aims to advance the conceptual understanding of supply chain orientation (SCO) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) as a general attitude and to empirically measure the link between SCO and willingness to implement supply chain management (SCM). Coordination among supply chain stages is widely considered important for competitiveness in all sectors. Recently, SCO of the actors has been discussed as a precondition for successful implementation of SCM.

SCO is operationalized as a two-dimensional attitudinal construct. In all, 279 German dairy farmers participated in an online-survey. By means of factor and cluster analysis and one-way analysis of variance, the relation between the two SCO dimensions and their link with willingness to implement several currently discussed SCM measures is analysed.

The SCO dimensions are not purely linearly related, as shown by three clusters with different patterns of vertical cooperation orientation and common goal orientation. No differences occur in terms of socio-economic characteristics, but the share of cooperative members varies. SCO is related to the intention to implement SCM. However, the greater the (monetary) efforts required by farmers, the lower their acceptance of an SCM measure. Trust and perception of the power relation play an important role, revealing patterns of coopetitive behaviour.

SCO is a relatively new and little investigated construct. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first time that a purely attitudinal measure was used, and that SMEs and the milk supply chain were investigated with respect to SCO and implementation of concrete SCM measures.

Price satisfaction is an influential factor in competitive performance and business success. Strong price satisfaction enhances and sustains high quality business relationships, leading to improved profits for chain participants. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of price satisfaction in the context of the Malaysian dairy industry. The aim is to determine which dimensions of price satisfaction affect relationship performance between Malaysian dairy producers and the dairy processers who purchase their milk.

In total, eight hypotheses are tested using partial least square methods on survey results from 133 dairy producers in Malaysia.

The study results suggest that relative price, price‐quality ratio and price fairness influence producers' loyalty and improved business relationship performance.

To achieve long‐term, sustainable business relationships involving consistent high quality supplies, milk buyers need to understand and capture the price satisfaction dimensions.

The paper provides insights into the important linkages between price satisfaction and business performance in an agriculture industry.

The purpose of this paper is to measure and evaluate the relationship between collaborative communication, power dependence, price satisfaction, trust, supplier loyalty, and business performance.

Data used in this study were primary data which were collected through personal interviews and closed questionnaires using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. The sample consisted of 170 individual dairy farmer and several dairy cooperatives, which were located in Central Java Province (Boyolali and Semarang Districts) and West Java Province (West Bandung District). The study used partial least squares with the aid of the SmartPLS software program to analyze the hypothesis.

The results of hypothesis testing indicate that collaborative communication and price satisfaction had a significant positive effect on trust for Central Java and West Java Province. Meanwhile, power dependence had a significant negative effect on trust only for West Java Province. Trust had a significant positive effect on supplier loyalty for both of the two provinces. Significant positive effect of supplier loyalty on business performance was supported in Central Java Province, whereas in West Java Province, supplier loyalty had a positive but not significant effect on business performance.

The limitation of this study is related to the number of samples, the type of scale used to measure a business performance, and the focus that is only on the relationship between the fargmers and cooperative to improve the performance of cooperative without considering the role of management. So, the future research may replicate this study in another region or in the other contexts of agribusiness sector that usually depends on farmer as a producer of the raw material. It may also enhance the measurement of business performance of dairy cooperative by using a direct measure of financial performance and non-financial performance and broaden the scope of research into the role of management of dairy cooperative.

It is recommended that managers of dairy cooperatives always involve the farmers when making marketing decisions especially concerning prices, products, market, and promotion. As organizational stakeholders, their involvement is vital in determining the ability of the dairy to achieve its goals. The other recommendation is the managers of cooperatives must have a clear policy on the price of milk, and this policy should indicate the transparency and accountability. Then, regarding the long-term benefit of dairy cooperative, it is recommended for dairy cooperatives to add the value of the milk so they can access wider markets, which, in turn, will maximize returns to the members. Based on this recommendation, it is better if the dairy cooperative in Indonesia not only serves as a marketing cooperative, but also serves as a farm supply cooperative which may process or formulate the milk into a more valuable product.

The research confirms that individual dairy farmer’s loyalty can benefit the business of dairy cooperative. It may encourage more dairy cooperative to tap the good relationship with the individual dairy farmer at the initial stage of the economic growth of their business. Intensifying competition between dairy cooperatives would potentially bring even better quality and quantity of milk from the loyal dairy farmer.

Although this research used the conceptual model from the previous study, this research will make some improvement. First, it used more indicators to measure each dimension of the construct, and the investigation was slightly more complex and broader since the object of the research was represented by two regions, namely, Central Java Province and West Java Province.

Research on buyer‐seller relationships in the agricultural sector receives little attention. A growing body of evidence suggests that strengthening buyer‐seller relationships fosters more efficient supply chains. Much of the long‐term relationship literature tends to treat suppliers as a homogeneous group when identifying motivations, strategies and incentives to enhance the quality of buyer‐seller relationships. This article aims to explore the role of long‐term relationships between buyers and sellers in Malaysia's dairy industry, taking into consideration the heterogeneous nature of producers.

The study examines variation in relationship quality (trust, satisfaction, and commitment), loyalty and price satisfaction dimensions, using data from a survey of 133 dairy producers.

Cluster analysis suggests two well‐defined groups differing in terms of demographic characteristics and relationship perceptions about their buyers.

The study results highlight ways milk buyers can develop and promote more appropriate and efficient marketing strategies with milk producers.

This study provides evidence of producer relationship segmentation in an agricultural industry of an emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the case study of Bakoma, which is a leading Polish yoghurt‐producing company that has achieved a remarkable success, but now is facing serious challenges from multinationals. The authors aim to analyse its development model, marketing strategy, and competitive position.

The paper is based on the authors' own case study. They gathered the necessary information from company documents, both published and unpublished, as well as a series of in‐depth interviews with representatives of Bakoma and other key players in the Polish dairy market.

The authors found out a strong interdependence of the business and political spheres, especially during the initial phase of the Polish systemic transition. Secondly, foreign partners played a major role in the creation of the company (inflow of capital from an American businessman of Polish origin), acquiring access to technology licence (Onken), and capital investments and transfer of management skills (Danone). A major strength of the company is its innovative marketing strategy based on a perfect knowledge of the specificity of Polish consumer preferences. Nevertheless, the Polish yoghurt market as an important segment of the dairy market becomes gradually more and more dominated by multinational corporations, especially of French and German origin.

This paper provides original insights into the development and marketing strategies of a leading Polish yoghurt company facing strong competition from multinationals. The results may be useful to managers from Central and Eastern European dairy companies.

The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of contractual relationships between farmers and buyers in the traditional and supermarket channels, and to explore determinants of farmers' commitment in the two channels.

The paper reports the results of a field study of 602 chili farmers in the largest chilli production area in Indonesia, West Java Province. The contractual arrangements were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while determinants of farmers' commitment were examined using factor analysis and Ordinary Least square (OLS) regression.

The contractual arrangements between farmers and traders in both traditional and supermarket channels are characterized by verbal agreements. Price is the main aspect of the contract in the traditional channel, while grading aspects are the most important aspects in the supermarket channel. Trust and satisfaction have significant influence on farmers' commitment in the two channels, while the actual price has no influence.

To improve farmers' commitment, traders should not only focus on absolute price, but also on building trust and satisfaction. Trust can be improved by providing payments on time and following through with their promises. Satisfaction can be improved by offering fair prices for farmers' products and providing quicker responses in handling farmers' concerns.

This study compares the trade relationships between traditional and supermarket channels. It incorporates actual price and behaviour variables in the analysis of farmers' commitment.

The case, briefly reported in the last issue of BFJ, an appeal to a Milk and Dairies Tribunal arising out of a local authority's refusal to grant a licence to a milk distributor because he failed to comply with a requirement that he should provide protective curtains to his milk floats, was a rare and in many ways, an interesting event. The Tribunal in this case was set up under reg. 16(2) (f), Milk (Special Designation) Regulations, 1963, constituted in accordance with Part I, clause 2 (2), Schedule 4 of the Regulations. Part II outlines procedure for such tribunals. The Tribunal is similar to that authorized by S.30, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, which deals with the registration of dairymen, dairy farms and farmers, and the Milk and Dairies (General) Regulations, 1959. Part II, Schedule 2 of the Act provided for reference to a tribunal of appeals against refusal or cancellation of registration by the Ministry, but of producers only. A local authority's power to refuse to register or cancellation contained in Part I, Schedule 2 provided for no such reference and related to instances where “public health is or is likely to be endangered by any act or default” of such a person, who was given the right of appeal against refusal to register, etc., to a magistrates' court. No such limitation exists in respect of the revoking, suspending, refusal to renew a licence under the Milk (Special Designation) Regulations, 1963; an appeal against same lies to the Minister, who must refer the matter to a tribunal, if the person so requests. This occurred in the case under discussion.