Business

The Yogurt Files: French Dairy Bosses Caught Colluding

Published

9 years ago

March 12, 2015

A man takes a yogurt pack from a refrigerator in a supermarket in Paris, Thursday, March 12, 2015. France’s competition authority handed the country’s top yogurt makers euro192 million ($203 million) in fines Thursday for fixing prices over the course of several years, striking secret deals in hotel rooms and on special phone lines created to avoid detection. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Frantic text messages between French CEOs about cottage cheese prices. Clandestine smoke breaks in a Left Bank apartment to collude on yogurt strategy.

A ruling Thursday by France’s competition authority makes for rich reading, detailing a web of secret meetings, hand-written charts and phone exchanges over six years to fix prices on many of the yogurt-related goods on French supermarket shelves.

Eleven companies were hit with 192 million euros ($203 million) in fines for the cartel, including Yoplait and Lactalis and makers of most of the store-brand yogurt sold around France.

Lactalis did not contest the accusations, but said it would appeal the decision, arguing in a statement that the fines “overestimate in an obvious way the gravity of the facts, and their impact on the economy.” The company said it is committed to obeying the law.

The cartel was uncovered thanks to a special procedure that allows companies to report their own price-fixing activity to regulators in exchange for reduced punishment. Yoplait, majority owned by U.S.-based General Mills Inc., was the first company to report the activity, and was given no fines.

Company bosses sketched out secret deals in hotel rooms and on special phone lines created to avoid detection. Sometimes they’d meet at Le Chien Qui Fume, an iconic Paris cafe, one boss is quoted in the investigation documents as saying. His counterparts then “came to my apartment a few times to continue the conversation and smoke a cigarette,” he added.

A Yoplait executive used a special cell phone dedicated to the cartel, paid for by Yoplait but not officially linked to him in any way. An executive with dairy maker Senagral used a special cell phone taken out in his girlfriend’s name.

Senagral, which specializes in store-brand dairy products, received the biggest fine, 46 million euros. The regulator said had 316 million euros in sales of price-fixed yogurts in 2011, more than any of the other companies.

The ruling describes how the companies were facing rising milk and packaging costs, and hints at some desperation. One executive lamented in a text message a “totally crazy price” at one supermarket, saying he needed a higher price or else “I’ll sink!!!”

Another text message protested a low price seen on a supermarket advertisement: “vanilla-flavored cottage cheese 8 x 100 grams at 1.19 euros?! Big problem for announcing rises!”

Amal Taleb, lawyer for consumer group UFC Que Choisir, hailed the investigation but said it’s too bad that French consumers, who are big buyers of yogurt, won’t benefit. The fines go to the public treasury.

“The consumer is the main victim,” she told The Associated Press, but added that it’s virtually impossible to calculate how much money consumers lost.

“Did you save your yogurt receipts from 2011? Me neither,” she said. But overall she said it was a “very good thing” that regulators are cracking down on price-fixing.

The ruling found that the companies agreed on how and when to raise prices from 2006 to 2012, and divided up volumes.

The last big ruling by the competition authority targeted makers of toothpaste, shampoo and cleaning products. The regulator fined 13 consumer-products makers about 950 million euros for price-fixing, including U.S.-based Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, and Sara Lee and Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Related Topics:cottage cheese france France yogurt yogurt Yoplait

Up Next

Uber, Lyft Rebuffed in Bids to Deem Drivers Independent Contractors

Don't Miss

Inside Big Taxi’s Dirty War With Uber

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of May 8 – 14, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May May 8 – 14, 2024

Published

6 days ago

May 10, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

Mayor Breed Proposes Waiving City Fees for Night Markets, Block Parties, Farmers’ Markets, Other Outdoor Community Events

Mayor London N. Breed introduced legislation on April 26 to encourage and expand outdoor community events. The first will waive City fees for certain events, making them less costly to produce. The second will simplify the health permitting for special event food vendors through the creation of an annual permit. Both pieces of legislation are part of the Mayor’s broader initiative to bring vibrancy and entertainment to San Francisco’s public right of ways and spaces.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Outdoor community events are integral to San Francisco’s vibrant culture and sense of community. iStock image.

Mayor’s Press Office

Mayor London N. Breed introduced legislation on April 26 to encourage and expand outdoor community events.

The first will waive City fees for certain events, making them less costly to produce. The second will simplify the health permitting for special event food vendors through the creation of an annual permit. Both pieces of legislation are part of the Mayor’s broader initiative to bring vibrancy and entertainment to San Francisco’s public right of ways and spaces.

Outdoor community events are integral to San Francisco’s vibrant culture and sense of community. These events include night markets, neighborhood block parties and farmers markets, and bolster the City’s economy by supporting local businesses and attracting tourists eager to experience San Francisco’s unique charm and food scene.

They offer residents, workers and visitors, opportunities to engage with local artists, musicians, and food vendors while enjoying the San Francisco’s stunning outdoor spaces and commercial corridors.

The legislation will allow for more and new community gatherings and for local food vendors to benefit from the City’s revitalization.

“San Francisco is alive when our streets are filled with festivals, markets, and community events,” said Breed. “As a city we can cut fees and streamline rules so our communities can bring joy and excitement into our streets and help revitalize San Francisco.”

Fee Waiver Legislation

The events that can take advantage of the new fee waivers are those that are free and open to the public, occupy three or fewer city blocks, take place between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., and have the appropriate permitting from the ISCOTT and the Entertainment Commission.

The applicant must be a San Francisco based non-profit, small business, Community Benefit District, Business Improvement District, or a neighborhood or merchant association. Fees eligible for waiver include any application, permit, and inspection/staffing fees from San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Department of Public Health, Fire Department, Entertainment Commission, and Police Department.

Currently, it can cost roughly anywhere between $500-$10,000 to obtain permits for organized events or fairs, depending on its size and scope. Organizations and businesses are limited to a maximum of 12 events in one calendar year for which they can receive these fee waivers.

Food Vendor Streamlining Legislation

The second piece of legislation introduced will help special event food vendors easily participate in multiple events throughout the year with a new, cost-effective annual food permit. Food vendors who participate in multiple events at multiple locations throughout the year will no longer need to obtain a separate permit for each event. Instead, special event food vendors will be able to apply and pay for a single annual permit all at once.

“Many successful food businesses either begin as pop-up vendors or participate in special events to grow their business,” says Katy Tang, Director of the Office of Small Business. “Giving them the option for an annual special event food permit saves them time and money.”

Currently, food vendors are required to get a Temporary Food Facility (TFF) permit from the Department of Public Health (DPH) in order to participate in a special event, among permits from other departments.

Currently, each special event requires a new permit from DPH ranging from $124-$244, depending on the type of food being prepared and sold. Last year, DPH issued over 1,500 individual TFF permits. With the new annual permit, food vendors selling at more than four to six events each year will benefit from hundreds of dollars in savings and time saved from fewer bureaucratic processes.

“This legislation is a step in the right direction to make it easier for food vendors like me to participate in citywide events,” said Dontaye Ball, owner of Gumbo Social. “It saves on time, money and makes it more effective. It also creates a level of equity.”

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Bay Area

Faces Around the Bay: Sidney Carey

Sidney Carey was born in Dallas, Texas. He moved with his family to West Oakland as a baby. His sister is deceased; one brother lives in Oakland. Carey was the Choir Director at Trinity Missionary Baptist Church for 18 years.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 4, 2024

Oakland Post

Courtesy of Sidney Lane.

By Barbara Fluhrer

Sidney Carey was born in Dallas, Texas. He moved with his family to West Oakland as a baby. His sister is deceased; one brother lives in Oakland.

Carey was the Choir Director at Trinity Missionary Baptist Church for 18 years.

He graduated from McClymonds High with a scholarship in cosmetology and was the first African American to complete a nine-month course at the first Black Beauty School in Oakland: Charm Beauty College.

He earned his License, and then attended U.C., earning a secondary teaching credential. With his Instructors License, he went on to teach at Laney College, San Mateo College, Skyline and Universal Beauty College in Pinole, among others.

Carey was the first African American hair stylist at Joseph and I. Magnin department store in Oakland and in San Francisco, where he managed the hair stylist department, Shear Heaven.

In 2009, he quit teaching and was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. He was 60 and “too old for a heart transplant”. His doctors at California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) went to court and fought successfully for his right to receive a transplant. One day, he received a call from CPMC, “Be here in one hour.” He underwent a transplant with a heart from a 25-year- old man in Vienna, Austria

Two years later, Carey resumed teaching at Laney College, finally retiring in 2012.

Now, he’s slowed down and comfortable in a Senior Residence in Berkeley, but still manages to fit his 6/4” frame in his 2002 Toyota and drive to family gatherings in Oakland and San Leandro and an occasional Four Seasons Arts concert.

He does his own shopping and cooking and uses Para Transit to keep constant doctor appointments while keeping up with anti-rejection meds. He often travels with doctors as a model of a successful heart-transplant plant recipient: 14 years.

Carey says, “I’m blessed” and, to the youth, “Don’t give up on your dreams!”