In the wake of news that the European Commission has cleared the way for Larry Goodman’s ABP Group to acquire the Allen family shares in Slaney Foods, Phelim O'Neill explains how the commission works.
The Competition Commissions in general tend to give greater emphasis to potential consequences of a merger on consumers that suppliers further down the supply chain.
Against this criteria, with Ireland being predominantly a beef-exporting nation, the reasons for rejecting the ABP Slaney deal stood little chance of carrying the day.
Farmers will see this decision, alongside the warning to the beef forum two years ago, as being evidence of big business interests trumping farmer interests.
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Nuances of the market for Irish beef cattle
Protecting consumers against the risk of the supply chain ripping them off through price fixing is a worthy function. However, the nuances of the market for Irish beef cattle are less well appreciated outside Ireland, where tens of thousands of farmers have essentially a handful of potential customers for their cattle.
A piece of EU legislation, country of origin labelling, has closed a traditional live export market to Britain with ABP’s UK operation being one of the major companies that puts a punitive penalty on non-UK-origin cattle and there are other factories that simply won’t pay for non-UK-origin cattle at all, returning any that do turn up to the supplier with a huge slaughter and handling charge.
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The Competition Commissions in general tend to give greater emphasis to potential consequences of a merger on consumers that suppliers further down the supply chain.
Against this criteria, with Ireland being predominantly a beef-exporting nation, the reasons for rejecting the ABP Slaney deal stood little chance of carrying the day.
Farmers will see this decision, alongside the warning to the beef forum two years ago, as being evidence of big business interests trumping farmer interests.
Nuances of the market for Irish beef cattle
Protecting consumers against the risk of the supply chain ripping them off through price fixing is a worthy function. However, the nuances of the market for Irish beef cattle are less well appreciated outside Ireland, where tens of thousands of farmers have essentially a handful of potential customers for their cattle.
A piece of EU legislation, country of origin labelling, has closed a traditional live export market to Britain with ABP’s UK operation being one of the major companies that puts a punitive penalty on non-UK-origin cattle and there are other factories that simply won’t pay for non-UK-origin cattle at all, returning any that do turn up to the supplier with a huge slaughter and handling charge.
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