Gidday Kansas. There is nothing exceptional about Fonterra other than they are very good at what they do.
It is a farmer owned coop, not especially big by world standards. But very big for NZ. At one stage they were processing and marketing about 96% of NZ's milk, but if think it will be less now. The expansion of dairy farming has created opportunities for privately owned companies to start up. Why a dairy farmer would want to supply anyone other than Fonterra is beyond me. OK you need to invest a lot of capital to become a shareholder. I don't know the exact figure but I wouldn't be surprised if the average dairy farmer had 1 million invested. They have recently lowered their share value so it could be less.
From my point of view what makes Fonterra special is that they genuinely set out pay their farmers as much as they can for their milk. Not enough for them to survive but as much as they can. This is a very different attitude to the meat coop that I supply. Their objective is to turn a profit and don't appear to be too concerned if their owners/suppliers don't. Different cultures and yes I'm bitter about it.
Fonterra has done an excellent job it the last 12 months, taking full advantage rise in dairy commodity prices.
Another thing that I admire about them is that they have a vision for the future.
That's a sheep farmers view perhaps Stuart can provide a bit more insight.