PrintFAWU Welcomes R195m Fine Imposed to Pioneer Foods (SASCO and DUENS Bakeries)
4 February 2010
The food and allied workers union (FAWU) welcomes the ruling by the Competition Tribunal to impose a fine of R195 million on Pioneer Foods for bread price-fixing and feel vindicated as we have been on record with our suspicions that there has been, and continues to be, price-fixing of food prices and anti-competitive conduct throughout production and supply-chain of basic food.
While this fine is only for a single financial year (2006), we wish it was for the revenue for the ten years or so of rampant price-fixing that has been endemic in the bread market. We hope that in future competition authorities will not hesitate to use stringent provisions of the amended version of the Competition Act, including of maximum fines and holding chief executive officers (CEOs) personally liable for such barbaric behavior.
We further call on competition authorities to expedite investigations and ensure speedy conclusions on price-fixing in other stages of the bread value-chain, such as price-fixing in the grain storage handling, wheat milling and retail sectors.
The four colluding bread bakeries are also the four biggest wheat millers and there is every reason to believe that they foreclose out independent bakeries from procuring or accessing bread flour needed in baking bread at competitive prices.
Please call General Secretary Katishi Masemola on 082 467 2509 for more information.
Katishi Masemola
FAWU General Secretary
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