Hjedding cooperative dairy

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The birthplace of the cooperative movement

By Kathrine G. Bjerregaard, Cand.mag i historie og filosofi / Master of Arts, History and Philosophy (33 stories)

The cooperative movement was born in a dairy in Hjedding in 1882. A group of enterprising farmers worked out that joining forces could help them to survive. They established a cooperative dairy and clubbed together to buy a cream separator. The society ultimately set the fashion for the many other cooperative dairies that flooded Denmark afterwards. In 1900 there were 900 of them. Today, the dairy is a monument to industry. It also relates the history of the democratic principles on which the cooperative movement is founded - principles that are a special feature of Denmark.

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Voting by human heads and not heads of cattle

Story written by Kathrine G. Bjerregaard

Time / Periode 1882

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A group of farmers met at the Dairy Museum's building in Hjedding one night in 1882 to discuss the best methods for churning butter. The meeting ended with an agreement to start up a cooperative dairy. The farmers also decided on the rules that were to apply. For one thing, everyone was to have an equal footing. They were to vote based on their own heads and not heads of cattle. In other words, every man had one vote regardless of the size of his herd of cows. One of the originators of the cooperative society was J. Stilling-Andersen. He was hired as a dairyman and a state-of-the-art Maglekilde cream separator was bought. Initially, the dairy ran smoothly, but problems soon arose. A typhus bacterium polluted the milk and the dairyman's assistant became infected and died.