Chile: Milk market collusion accusations wash over social media

Chilean social networks have called out in support of local Colún milk brand and against foreign rivals Soprole, Nestlé and Watts, following accusations that the latter have attempted to exclude the cooperative from the market, leading congressman Iván Flores to declare that Chile’s milk sector “Does not conform to free competition”

In June 2017 the congressmen sitting in the Agriculture Committee filed a complaint with the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE) against Soprole, Nestlé and Watt’s over alleged collusion. At this time they claimed that, although the prices at which the companies buy milk from small producers have dropped by 22% since 2015, the value of their products had risen by 8%. Watts counterattacked, accusing the Colún cooperative of receiving numerous tax breaks.

In an interview with CNN Chile, congressman Flores explained that “due to the fact that it is a cooperative, Colún enjoys certain tax benefits”, and accused the other three companies of “a kind of collusion […]” Chile is a scandal from the point of view of the intervention made by these three companies, international, by the way, with producers charging them one of the lowest prices in the world while they are charging consumers one of the highest prices in the world,” he argued.

The battle reached new levels after its viral spread in social networks, particularly following the involvement of the Social Patriot Movement – of ultra-nationalist tack – and its call for boycotting the foreign multinationals.
Full Content: CNN Chile

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