Dairy Farm Hall
Dairy Farm
Dairy Farm products, today under Nestlé, have a long history in Hong Kong and have always been the affordable choice in dairy goods. In recent years the company’s 1970s retro-edition ice-cream packaging drew media coverage, yet Dairy Farm’s recent promotional efforts have been far quieter than those of imported premium ice-cream brands such as Japan’s or Korea’s Lotte, Dreyer’s, Häagen-Dazs, Mövenpick and GODIVA.
Dairy Farm’s history can be traced back to the late 19th century. Its founder, Patrick Manson, was a doctor from Scotland, and his contributions to Hong Kong went well beyond founding the Dairy Farm company in 1886: he also founded the Hong Kong Medical Society and established the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, forerunner of the University of Hong Kong’s medical school. It was on hearing of the college Manson had opened that Sun Yat-sen, then studying medicine in Guangzhou, came to Hong Kong — where the revolutionary ideas with which he would overthrow the Qing government took shape.
The Dairy Farm company Manson founded brought in dairy cows from Scotland and feed from Queensland, Australia, and bought land around Pok Fu Lam and Causeway Bay to build pastures, raising cows and drawing milk — its aim being to provide fresh, hygienic milk to every stratum of Hong Kong society.
Even so, in its early days milk in Hong Kong was sold mainly to foreigners, at prices ordinary people could not afford over the long run. Reports note that Dairy Farm later also sold imported butter and cheese, sold bread of its own making and opened Western restaurants — again catering to foreigners.
Hongkong Land’s battle for Dairy Farm
After several decades of development, Dairy Farm had attained considerable scale in Hong Kong and was listed on the Hong Kong stock market. In 1972 another venerable British-owned firm, Hongkong Land (置地), launched a takeover battle for Dairy Farm — a battle fought over neither milk nor ice cream, and one that financial commentators have described as Hong Kong’s first merger-and-acquisition event to leave a profound mark on the stock market.
Dairy Farm and Hongkong Land each took out full-page newspaper advertisements, appealing directly to the members of the public who held Dairy Farm shares. Those duelling full-page text advertisements are still talked about with relish today. In the end, Hongkong Land completed the takeover on 15 December 1972, by which time it held about 90% of Dairy Farm’s shares, and Dairy Farm’s stock-market listing was cancelled.
Nestlé Dairy Farm
After Dairy Farm was swallowed up by Hongkong Land, the site of its ice works in Causeway Bay was redeveloped into a commercial building, which later became today’s Windsor House. The pasture land in Pok Fu Lam became today’s Chi Fu Fa Yuen housing estate.
In 1983 Dairy Farm sold off all its cattle in Pok Fu Lam, and in 1992 it sold a 51% interest in its Hong Kong dairy-production business to Nestlé. Finally, in 1997, it sold the remaining 49% interest to Nestlé outright. Nestlé thereby took over the “Dairy Farm” trade name — hence the “Nestlé Dairy Farm” products everyone sees today. Since then, the Dairy Farm International group, which still uses the “Dairy Farm” name for its corporate management, has held no milk business at all.
Dairy Farm International
Since its takeover by Hongkong Land in 1972, “Dairy Farm” has, besides property, developed many non-dairy businesses: Wellcome supermarkets, acquired back in 1964; Mannings pharmacies, in which it took a stake in 1976 when the chain had only three shops; 7-Eleven, whose Hong Kong franchise it obtained in 1981; Maxim’s, injected into Dairy Farm International from Hongkong Land in 1986; and IKEA, whose franchise was injected from Jardine Matheson in 2002 — retail names familiar to everyone, and the histories of those brands are further intriguing stories in themselves.
Sources:
https://www.dairyfarmgroup.com/zh-HK/Our-Company/Our-History
https://www.dairyfarmgroup.com/zh-HK/
https://www.dfiretailgroup.com/company/our-history
https://www.nestle.com.hk/zh-hant/media/pressreleases
http://ubeat.com.cuhk.edu.hk/140-milk/
https://industrialhistoryhk.org/dairy-farm-timeline/https://industrialhistoryhk.org/dairy-farm-company/
https://www.amo.gov.hk/tc/heritage-trails/cw-trails/central/section-c/c31/index.htm
https://ol.mingpao.com/ldy/cultureleisure/culture/20210221/1613844866830/%E9%80%9A%E8%AD%98%E5%B0%8E%E8%B3%9E-%E7%89%9B%E5%A5%B6-%E8%B1%86%E5%A5%B6-%E5%A5%B6%E8%8C%B6%E8%88%87%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E8%BA%AB%E4%B8%96
香港企業併購經典 = Merger & acquisitions
Compiled by Feng Bangyan (馮邦彥)
Revised Hong Kong edition. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd., 2017
港股經典收購戰 (Classic takeover battles in Hong Kong stocks)
By Lui Chi-wah (呂志華)
Hong Kong: Ming Pao Publications, 1993
香港金融風雲35載 (35 years of Hong Kong financial turbulence)
Edited by Chan King-cheung (陳景祥)
Enrich Publishing / Hong Kong Economic Journal Company Limited, 2008
香港走過的道路 (The road Hong Kong has travelled)
By Lau Yun-wo (劉潤和) and Ko Tim-keung (高添強)
Revised Hong Kong edition. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd., 2013
Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences
RTHK programmes 《歷史說香港》 (History Speaks of Hong Kong) and 《古今風雲人物》 (Remarkable Figures Past and Present)
First published in Sep 2020 by Hong Kong Brand Museum 香港品牌博物館
