Any merger between Alliance Group and Silver Fern Farms appears to be as distant as ever given a low response to a questionnaire.
Just 517 people replied to an open letter to shareholders of both co-operatives by Silver Fern Farms (SFF), designed to assess support for the investigation of a merger, a response that appears to remove the issue from the immediate agendas of both companies.
The Alliance (AGL) website says it has 5500 shareholders and SFF about 18,000, but an unknown number of farmers own shares in both co-operatives.
Of those who replied to the questionnaire, 87% supported the proposal.
Alliance Group chairman Owen Poole described the turnout as "very low, accounting for about 2% of the 23,500 shareholders".
"SFF has acknowledged in its press release that they do not have the mandate to progress the proposal further," he said.
SFF chairman Eoin Garden said his company would now focus on its plate-to-pasture integrated supply chain strategy, but he hoped the poll would lead to more shareholder discussion on the issue of aggregation.
He was not surprised by the low response given farmers' traditional apathy towards voting, but he said the response was also influenced by "an aggressive push-back by AGL, who were opposed to even the suggestion of evaluating the amalgamation benefits, and that would have contributed to the low turnout".
Mr Garden said AGL would only talk of the past and SFF's historic financial problems, not of the future.
There was still merit in the poll as shareholders now knew AGL's position to industry aggregation with SFF.
But even though he was pleased AGL had included the item on the agenda of its annual meeting in December, Mr Garden did not think it would amount to much.
"Based on its board's overly aggressive and negative reaction to the suggestion of an independent evaluation, we don't expect the world to change."
Mr Garden said SFF would build relationships throughout the sector "to capture the benefit of innovation and scale".
