Milk price fixing - is it a cartel?

M

MrKeane

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I have been buying about 10 litres of milk for the last few years since my kids arrived. "Own brand" milk has always been €1.19 in Dunnes, Lidl and Tesco. I went to Lidl the other day and it had gone up to €1.29. Suprise, suprise when I went to Dunnes this evening it had gone up to €1.29 as well, what a coincidence.

Is this practice legal?
 
Anybody know if Aldi (who also had it at €1.19 per 2L if I recall correctly) and Tesco have followed suit?
 
The supermarkets monitor each other's prices and move them up and down accordingly. It is perfectly legal.

If they sit down beforehand and agree a particular price, it would be a criminal offence.

Brendan
 
To be fair rising milk prices are definitely part of a global phenomenon. It would be strange if they didn't go up. The rising cost of corn, which has been driven by the bio-ethanol drive of the Bush administration, is feeding into many other areas including dairy products.

[broken link removed]
 
I presume that the fact that even €1.29 for 2L of milk is significantly less than many retailers is pertinent too? If there was price fixing going on then presumably everybody would charge the top price? One local shop around our way was charging about €1.20 for 1L! And if you buy those 250ml cartons then you'll probably pay the equivalent of about €2 per litre!
 
The Competition Authority investigated the milk industry in the late nineties and referred a file to the DPP. No action was taken. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this was that the CA believed it was an industry that required investigation.

You will note that in Dublin the brands (Premier and Avonmore) in the supermarket are owned by the same company, and both appear to have different prices. There also appears to be a floor price on own brand 2l milk in the main supermarkets. While you might pay 3 different prices for the same 2l milk in a supermarket, it may well be the case that this milk comes from the same supplier - and this supplier is catering to the different price sensitivities of the consumer. I suppose the question is why does this supplier supply the majority of milk to the Dublin market, while other suppliers appear to have their own geographic territory.
 
Doesn't Aldi/Lidl (and other?) own brand milk come from NI? Whatever happened to Strathroy milk? That used to sell in a lot of smaller local Dublin shops for £0.99/2L years ago (c. €1.26 in nominal terms and more in real terms if adjusted for inflation!).
 
Just checked this evening and Tesco have also increased their price to €1.29/2L.
 
Any chance that [broken link removed] has something to do with recent retail price increases?
 
Having been close to skint for many of the past several years, I've kept a fairly close eye on prices at supermarkets and I've found that Dunnes and Tesco have exactly the prices - down to the penny - for about 95% of their products. It's got to be deliberate, there's no way it could be a coincidence.
 
Brooklyn

Of course it is deliberate. That is what competition is about. They try to match each other's prices. Each tries to be the lowest. Since Aldi and Lidl entered the market, the competition got even tougher.

Brendan
 
If there was something dodgy going on here then why would they not simply fix prices at the higher levels charged elsewhere?
 
SWMBO tells me that M&S milk is cheapest at the moment. I'm not sure of the exact figures.
 
Its surprising that the media hasn't latched onto this - it has just sneeked in.

ninsaga
 
I can confirm that M & S milk is alot cheaper than the other supermarkets which are charging an average at about €1 per litre. M & S charge as of Friday 69p per litre.
 
Jools600 said:
I can confirm that M & S milk is alot cheaper than the other supermarkets which are charging an average at about €1 per litre. M & S charge as of Friday 69p per litre.
Click to expand...

Eh? 69p is more than €1. Do you mean that M&S milk is 69c?
 
Jools600 said:
I can confirm that M & S milk is alot cheaper than the other supermarkets which are charging an average at about €1 per litre. M & S charge as of Friday 69p per litre.
Click to expand...
Do you mean €0.69/L? If so then that's €1.38/2L which is still dearer than Dunnes/Tesco/Lidl who not sell own brand milk at €1.29/2L. I presume Aldi are the same but haven't checked yet.
 
Milk has been €1.19 for a long time, maybe 4 years or more based on my kids age, so a rise of ~8.5% is not that much given the nature of inflation in recent years.

Whats annoying is that after all of the hype of the groceries order being abolished the "price war" has not really materialised.
 
MrKeane said:
Whats annoying is that after all of the hype of the groceries order being abolished the "price war" has not really materialised.
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The Grocery's Order only prevented below cost selling. Not too many retailers are going to sell below cost generally or indefinitely otherwise they would go out of business.
 
My apologies to all.
I can confirm it is 69c and NOT 69p..I have checked it on my receipt from the shopping I did at the weekend.
Thanks
 
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