Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in the Food Industry – Comparison of Co-operatives and Investor-owned Dairies

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a central issue in the dairy industry. While it is well established that each company in a chain contributes to that chain's CSR, the role of co-operatives as a predominant organizational form has been understudied. Due to specific characteristics of co-operatives, one may hypothesize that these member-based dairies put a higher value on sustainability than investor-owned dairy firms. No previous study deals explicitly with the contents of CSR reports in the dairy industry, differentiating between co-operative and investor-owned dairies. We adapt an existing set of criteria to examine CSR reports from 13 German dairies and complete the picture by analyzing their websites. A comparison of formal, quality-related, and content-related criteria suggests that co-operative dairies report in a higher quality and more extensively about sustainability. The results provide first insights into organizational form-specific differences in sustainability reporting. Our findings highlight areas in which dairy companies can become more sustainable.