(Competition) Food for Thought
In the past months, our savory series of posts on food and competition law had been kept in the freezer.
Thanks to the French Competition Authority (“FCA”), it is our pleasure today to defrost this category of posts.
In Groupe coopératif Agrial/Bakkavör (a merger case), the FCA concluded to the existence of a product market for salads, distinct from the product market for other fresh vegetables.
But this is not all. The FCA further delineated the market on the basis of the “technology“(sic!) applied in this sector. It accordingly distinguished between salads of 1st category (i.e. fresh, raw, unwashed, unpeeled) and salads of 4th category (i.e. fresh, raw, washed, peeled).
The bottom-line: there’s technology everywhere.
PS: thanks to A. Ronzano for the pointer.
Chillin'Competition 
Hi, if you are fond of food cartels, I just read on die Zeit that the Bundeskartellamt stormed on Tuesday nine potatoes producers for an alleged price cartel – http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2013-05/kartoffel-kartell-preise
Petra
11 May 2013 at 10:45 am
And another article: http://blog.beck.de/2013/05/14/kartoffel-kartellrecht-teil-2
Petra
14 May 2013 at 11:09 pm