Price Fixing of a Major Product?
Via the BBC: Chocolate firms Nestle and Mars accused of price-fixing
Authorities in Canada have charged the food giants Nestle and Mars, together with a network of independent wholesale distributors, in an alleged conspiracy to fix prices of chocolates.
The Competition Bureau in the capital Ottawa said it has uncovered "evidence" suggesting price-fixing.
Nestle Canada, Mars Canada, and the distributors ITWAL have been charged.
[…]
Three individuals have also been charged as part of the investigation.
They are former Nestle Canada president Robert Leonidas; Sandra Martinez, former president of confectionery for Nestle Canada; and David Glenn Stevens, president and chief executive of ITWAL.
Oh dear, when the Canadians are mad at you…
Actually, this is just internecine combat within Canada. For a variety of reasons, these companies have spun off operations in Canada from those in the US or Switzerland. There are even situations where a candy sold in the US under the Mars brand is made and sold by Nestle in Canada.
But these tangles have nothing to compare with the fights within the Marx family that controls the various Mars labels. UK Mars is only related by blood to the US Mars, not by conjoined management or even ownership.
Then there’s also the debate of whether these companies actually make “chocolate”.
/yes, there are chocolate snobs
In junior high, which was in the 60s, we had a reading assignment. It was a business story by a guy who found out about bad weather in Africa hurting the cocoa crop and figured he could make money on cocoa futures. Didn’t work. The moral of the story was that bad weather or no, the price of cocoa was whatever Hershey and Nestle said it was.
Tell me. I’m starting to regard Lindt as “moderately acceptable” starter chocolate nowadays :D.