Reregulating the UK dairy industry: The changing nature of competitive space

In November 1994 the statutory Milk Marketing Board within England and Wales was disbanded, ending over sixty years of structured formal involvement by the state in the operation of the dairy market, This paper examines the changing form and function of regulation in the UK dairy sector as actors, both new and old, renegotiate internal and external sectoral relations. The process of reregulation is set within the context of a food system in which producer-dominated corporatism has been challenged by retailer-based regulation through the supply chain. Through studying this example of agri-food restructuring, the paper investigates how new state/market configurations are being played out, and how new ideological approaches to agricultural and economic policy may in turn impact on rural space. Viewing rural space as an area of contest and challenge within which reregulation occurs, the role of food quality in driving new processes of differentiation is seen as particularly important.