Hidden camera

In the summer, the Dairy Product Council had begun preparing for demonstrations against multinational chains blamed for the market difficulties which milk producing and processing enterprises are facing. They want more money for their milk and more Hungarian products on the shelves. The financial crisis has made their demands even more unlikely to be met. While the major players in the dairy sector are blaming multinational chains for their problems, smaller players are trying to pass them by and contact consumers directly. For example, one of the smaller processing enterprises operates a mobile store on the roads of Pest and Győr-Moson-Sopron counties. Relations between producers, processing enterprises and retailers have never been good, but reached a new low in November. Framers set up road blocks and latter attempted to negotiate, without success. Both retail chains and milk producers kept repeating their mantras without engaging in true dialogue. According to László Takács, director of the Poultry Product Council, if the recordings made using a hidden camera during negotiations were published, it would become obvious to everybody how retailers abuse their power through their price policy. Hungary is not the only country where the dairy sector is in crisis, but world production is growing dynamically. Within the EU, France accounted for 85 percent of the growth seen in the first half of 2008. In France, farmers and processing enterprises co-operate in determining prices and compensating for the effect of international trends. Milk production is also rising in Italy, the Benelux states, Germany and Poland. Current supply prices are expected to stabilise in the global market within a few years, but this is too far ahead for Hungarian producers. This is why they have decided to continue demonstrating.