The decision of the Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Competition of not consulting livestock producers about the purchase of the Breeders & Packers Uruguay (BPU) refrigerator made by the firm Minerva Foods caused surprise in the Rural Federation (FR), one of the main unions in the agricultural sector in Uruguay.
Emilio Mangarelli, vice president of the rural entity, told The Observer that “It is striking that the producers have not called us to see what we think, since we are a fundamental link, the one at the beginning of the chain”.
The FR, on its Twitter social network account, stated the following:
Com. of Promotion and Defense of the Competition is going to call to comment on the purchase of BPU by Minerva.
And he does NOT plan to call producer institutions as stated in the statement.
Do you think that they cannot agree on the input being 80% of the cost?– Rural Federation (@federacionrural) June 13, 2023
The aforementioned commission of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) did summon other actors: the Association of Livestock Shippers, the National Meat Institute, the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, the Union of Meat Sellers, the Association of the Refrigeration Industry of Uruguay and the Chamber of the Refrigeration Industry.
Regarding the sale of the BPU refrigerator, belonging to the Japanese company Grupo NH Foods, “producers are something that worries us and it seems appropriate that we be consulted in this instance,” he added.
NH Foods, he said, “is a different, Japanese company, very important worldwide and unfortunately it had to decide to leave the country (after investing US$135 million in 2017), and that is something that worries one a lot.”
“That a company of the size of NH Foods cannot work in Uruguay due to excessive stimuli, union problems, and the fact that the Chinese market was closed and it took a lot of effort to reopen it, that is undoubtedly very worrying,” he reflected.
Minerva Foods owns four industrial complexes in Uruguay: BPU, Carrasco, PUL and Canelones.
In statements to Carve Radio Value Added, Patricio Cortabarría, president of the Rural Association of Uruguay, in addition to agreeing with the view of the RF, identified another cause for concern:
Ing. Patricio Cortabarria, President of the ARU on the possible sale of BPU to Minerva: “I think the most important point in all this is to see why NH Foods, after having made a significant investment, withdraws from the country.”
?Audiohttps://t.co/JrSm3nvYEP@PNCortabarria
— Added Value (@VAgregado) June 13, 2023
task concentration
Mangarelli, if the sale finally materializes, gave his opinion on this concern: the concentration of work in industrial plants of two large Brazilian groups (Minerva and Marfrig), “52% of the slaughter remains in the two largest producers of animal protein worldwide”indicated.
Marfrig operates in the Tacuarembó, La Caballada, Colonia and San José refrigerators.
With regard to the concentration factor of the work, if one considers in addition to that 52% concentrated in two companies with Brazilian capital the two large national meat processing plants (Las Piedras and Pando), 87% of the work would be carried out in four companies.
“One believes in the free market, but just as we are in a free market, these things are worrying,” he concluded.
