News Milk
Italian farmers are suing Lactalis practices
The Italian farmers' union Coldiretti is going to battle with dairy giant Lactalis. President Ettore Prandini said this. According to him, the reason is that the company violates European rules that protect against unfair commercial practices.
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Lactalis has a strong position in the Italian dairy market. It controls about a third of dairy production, mainly through its subsidiary Parmalat. The company controls approximately 2 billion kilos of milk supply, has 28 factories employing approximately five thousand people and has an annual turnover of approximately €2,8 billion.
Italian dairy farmers do not necessarily object to Lactalis' strong position on the Italian dairy market, but they do object to the way in which the company deals with that strong position.
Coldiretti notes that Lactalis has made unilateral changes to the contracts with dairy farmers. For example, the dairy company is said to have lowered reference prices and, among other things, also introduced a new index containing new calculation factors. This mainly concerns reference prices from other European dairy companies, about which nothing has been agreed and which strongly influence the average price level in the basket of comparison prices to the detriment of Italy.
This is a sore point for the farmers, which is why their union has filed a complaint with the inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty in Rome.