Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd (generally referred to simply as Fonterra) is a large New Zealand dairy company. As a cooperative company, Fonterra is owned by approximately thirteen thousand individual farmers throughout the country.
Fonterra was established in October 2001 as a merger of the two largest New Zealand dairy cooperatives and the New Zealand Dairy Board. The intent of the merger was to create a single "mega-company" through which to focus all of New Zealand's international dairy trade.
The company has an annual turnover of around US$6.8 billion. It claims to control a third of international dairy trade. Its core business consists of exporting dairy products, but it also participates in a number of other agricultural industries - it controls New Zealand's largest retailer of agricultural supplies, and owns ViaLactia, a biotechnology company that focus on the dairy farming sector.
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