Fraud damaging farmers and consumers?
The government service suspects that a central
person called several suppliers of onions and potatoes when making big orders for
supermarkets, to agree upon a price, from which only slight deviations were possible.
In 80 to 90 percent of the time the system is said to have worked. According to
German press releases retailers could multiply their profits tenfold.
According to newspaper Süddeutschen Zeitung
companies could have earned up to 100 million euro extra in ten years from
working this way. Competitor Bild Zeitung mentions fraud worth a billion dollar
over ten years’ time. The practice was not limited to onions and potatoes ready
for consumption, but was also used for seed potatoes. This way also farmers got
lifted.
There are however also some observers who have doubts: the prices for potatoes in German stores are situated in the lower or the
middle parts of the European spectrum. Consuming 60 kg per person each year,
Germans are quite the potato eaters.
