Associated Co-operative Creameries

The first meeting of the Associated Co-operative Creameries (ACC) was held on 12 July 1960 and was registered on 20 June 1961 under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. It was drawn together from officials from the Bishop Aukland Co-operative Society, Darlington Co-operative and Industrial Society and the Stockton Co-operative Society. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss a way to make the federalisation of the milk trade in the co-operative movement possible. A federalised dairy trade was seen as a better solution for their respective societies’ dairy businesses than the contemporary practices of merging and take-over bids which seemed to be dominating the milk processing and distribution business.

The rationale behind choosing federalisation was that it would " give [to the three societies] economic use of capital, economies in distribution, better supervision and economy of staff, better sales promotion, and the opportunity to tender for contracts throughout the area served. "

...