The other day I heard a broadcast on the Icelandic radio that I had totally forgotten existed. The name of this briefing program is „Death News and Funerals“ and the purpose is to inform the public of who has died and where, in addition to providing a list of scheduled funerals. It is read every day, year round. For those living here one thing is thus almost certain, if you manage to get born - your name will get mentioned on the radio at least twice, both times on „Death News and Funerals“.
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| The Icelandic Viking Cow - photo from www.visir.is At school we learn they have 7 stomachs - totally useless information but this is the first time in my life I have had the opportunity to use it |
- The Icelandic Dairy Co-op – hereinafter called the milk mafia - has a monopoly on collecting milk from farmers and selling it to the public and others that require dairy products.
- The milk mafia has been quite ok when it comes to selling dairy products to grocery retailers. They have however been appalling when it comes to companies that want to enter the dairy market and systematically done everything in their power to bankrupt such operations in order to remove any competition.
- As an example of this is a small family run company that wanted to produce ice cream in the 70s. When this turned out successfully the milk mafia decided that they too wanted to make ice cream and their chances of doing well would be upped if they shut down the original ice cream company. So they decided to stop selling them the cream needed to make ice cream. Then the road was clear for them. The original ice cream company had to make their ice cream from vegetable oil after that.
- The milk mafia also took on Dairy Queen when they tried to open up shop in Iceland. There is thus no Dairy Queen here, they had to quit when they were refused any Dairy. They could have tried to stay afloat as Queen and just sold empty cones but probably decided that this was not the way forward.
- The milk mafia has also gone after cheese makers and producers of lactose free products. You name it. If it involves dairy they will be there with their dirty meddling fingers to ruin everything.
- There was also mention of the same men being on the milk mafia board of directors and chairing committees that were to make sure they kept within the law. By this time I had begun to see red and my ears were humming so I did not process the information properly.
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| picture from: www.tripadvisor.com |
I really
want to go shopping with an auger and poke holes in all the milk cartons. The
only reason I am going to pass is because I know it will only serve to make the
grocery store workers life harder as they would be forced to clean it up.
Unless they send out a minister to do it for them. Hardly.
The sad
thing about this whole debacle is that as consumers we can’t boycott the milk
mafia’s products unless we go off dairy. This is because they have made sure to
kill off the competition for almost half a century now.
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| picture from: www.viralnovelty.com |
The good
thing about this whole thing is that the milk mafia has just been hit with a
hefty fine for horrid market practices. The bad news is that we the consumers
will be paying it as it is sure to make its way into the price of dairy. I
really don’t understand why they do not fine members of the board and the CEOs
of such companies. It is in their hands to conduct business in the proper way.
A company as an entity has no will or decision making powers.
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| Here I was going to put a photo to depict what I think corruption would look like if it had physical form - I did not find anything I found disguting enough. Imagine, for the search I had the whole internet at my disposal. |
Yrsa -
Wednesday
Posts
Yrsa, one can only hope that the outraged public will put the whole board in jail and replace them with people who want to spend the next five years or so rectifying the situation. The most benign of endeavors can be derailed by those rotters. I say such corrupt operators should have their last name changed to Parasite!
ReplyDeleteHi Annamaria - that would be Parasiteson :-)
ReplyDeleteYES! And their families should have to carry that name into perpetuity. I do not believe in visiting the sins of the fathers on their progeny, but in this case it MIGHT motivate people to think twice before taking such nasty steps.
ReplyDeleteIt sure would :-)
ReplyDeleteDoes Iceland not have any anti-monopoly laws? Hopefully someone there will look into their crystal ball, and view won't be too milky, and they'll be able to see a way forward from this manure-filled situation.
ReplyDeleteThey do Everett but oddly enough we also have a law that says the Milk Mafia does not fall under the anti monopoly law. It is a quagmire.
DeleteYou could put a photo of your pickled shark in the picture frame.
ReplyDeleteDamn - you are so right. I think the internet must have regurgitated all photos of the rotted shark. The are in the great big ether recycle bin.
DeleteNow you know why I gave up the law for writing: We get to do in our books what we'd like to do to the corrupt %$#%$^& in real life. Sadly, from my experiences in that bastion of European virtue in which I reside, that's about all the meaningful satisfaction I expect to see on that score. Eisenhower was right, "Beware of the
ReplyDeleteMilitary Milk Complex." PS. Milk in Greece is Euro 1.40/liter with a good wage 800 euros/ month.
Wow, Yrsa, I had no idea such corruption was rife in Iceland. And being exempt from the anti-monopoly laws -- how on earth did they swing that?
ReplyDeleteLaws can be changed, especially if the politicians are convinced they will lose their jobs. I would think this would be easier in a post-kreppa world, but maybe it isn't.
ReplyDelete