ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the deconstruction of the wholesales’ global supply network and explore the reasons for its abandonment. It argues that many of the reasons for this lay within the co-operative movement and within Britain itself, although other factors, including a loss of enterprise and global political developments, also played a part. The chapter examines two key case studies of wholesale activity within the British Empire: the palm oil and cocoa operations in West Africa, and the tea plantations run by the English & Scottish Joint Co-operative Wholesale Society in India and Ceylon. It offers some especially important observations of how the wholesales’ search for profitable sources of essential commodities interacted with Britain’s wider imperial interests and how cut-throat competition with domestic rivals drove wholesale activities. The wholesales emerged from the Second World War in a position that superficially appeared to have been significantly strengthened.
