Influence
Dairies
In the 1950s, a joint stock company was formed out of a series of dairies, uniting into two rivals Mejeriselskaberne Danmark and Kløver who later merged to found MD Foods (now Arla Foods) which controls almost all of the Danish milk market. The Danish Crown meat processing company also owes its existence to the cooperative movement.
Co-op shops
The cooperative movement also resulted in a series of co-op stores known as Brugsen, which were under the administration of the The Danish Consumers Co-operative Society. The stores kept a large share of the Danish consumer goods market. It merged with the similar retail chains in Norway and Sweden in January 2002, to form Coop Norden.
Wind mills
The cooperative ownership model for wind mills was developed in Denmark. First for smaller wind mills, later for wind farms. One of the biggest copeartively owned windfarms are at Middelgrunden in Copenhagen and at the Samsø island.
See also: Wind power in Denmark, Wind turbine cooperative.
Communities
In the late 70's early 80's Collective lifestyle, including cooperative production was very popular. Some of these collectives still exist like Svanholm, which was started in 1978. Freetown Christiania was established in 1971. People living in these communities are often environment conscious, and join the Danish Ecovillage Network . See also Global Ecovillage Network.
Co-housing
Living in co-housing groups with a common ground and common house is relatively common in Denmark. The common house is used for common eatings, common washing machines, meetings and fests. There are 3 types of co-housing groups:
- One type, where the flats/houses are built by a national housing association and people are renting the flats. E.g., Lejerbo has 37,000 apartments . In English this type of housing often referred as social co-housing.
- Another where people are owning the flats/houses and the land and the loan together. In Danish they are called "andelsbolig", and
- Third type, where people own the common house and the land together, but they own their own family houses. E.g., AiH .
Read more about this topic: Danish Cooperative Movement
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