Its share price might have bombed out, but Glanbia's management must be very pleased that the group managed to extricate itself from the cut-throat British dairy industry. Bloodletting in the industry is going from bad to worse with increasing consolidation being forced on the main players as the multiples squeeze their margins unmercifully.

Until last week, the rationalisation had been conducted in quite a gentelmanly fashion through agreed asset sales like Glanbia's sale of its British to Express Dairies for £120 million (£152 million) last year.

Dairy Crest's proposed merger of its operations with Unigate's dairy business looked like continuing that pattern - until the aggressively expansionary Scottish dairy group Robert Wiseman upset the apple cart with an unsolicited and higher indicative £225 million sterling (€369 million) bid for the Unigate business.

Unigate has insisted that its deal with Dairy Crest is watertight, but with Wiseman offering hard cash rather than Dairy Crest shares of questionable long-term value, its shareholders might feel a bit aggrieved if the Wiseman bid does not get serious consideration.

So with Glanbia out of the British market, what has this latest corporate squabble got to do with the Irish dairy industry. Not a lot in the national sense, but quite a lot for dairy farmers in Wexford who own 20 per cent of Wexford Creameries through their local co-op and supply milk for Wexford Creameries' cheddar cheese operations, most of which is sold to British multiples. The other 80 per cent is owned by Unigate.

Wexford Milk Producers Coop chairman Michael Vaughan and the creamery's managing director Seamas O'Beirne were enthusiastic in last week Farmer's Journal about the Dairy Crest/ Unigate deal - but that was before Robert Wiseman arrived on the scene with its unsolicited cash offer.