The cartel offices had only just granted permission for Dumeco, Moksel and NFZ to unite under the holding of Bestmeat, and yet the group of companies started flexing its muscles:

Trying one's strength began one nice Thursday four weeks ago. Right before the telephone conference was started of the united producers' associations' so-called North-West round, Bestmeat published its own internal price. And then this kind of sheer price for slaughter was paid for a week from Friday on without being questioned! No-one cared for the farmers' opinion. Well then, it's more than understandable that other slaughter companies appreciate joining this way of proceeding by again using this price, which falls below the market balancing prices, as their own internal price.

In Germany, this led to a situation where we are running after the market in Europe as regards pricing, no longer continuing to be the driving force behind the European price development. But that in particular makes clear that we need flexible depicting of market conditions in a contemporary way -- for which we then need repeated price observation every week.

And now there are plans to introduce a kind of dictate from which increased losses caused by the payment system would result. So the one and only ray of hope we see in this Nordfleisch purchasing concept is that shorter payment periods are planned (going down to one week).

What can the farmers and the ISN do about this matter?

Just like the producers' associations, the ISN is in a position to name prices that can be achieved on the market. We need buyers who are able to pay higher prices according to the market conditions, on either a short or long term basis. As a countermove, they need to be provided with larger quantities of pigs at short notice -- at the expense of the leading buyers that tend to not be as flexible.

So is and has been the ISN's business policy and that of the internet pig market. Both carry out payments within a few days' time and do still apply the so-called Euro reference table.

The internet pig market in particular with its Wednesday auctions is in a position to blaze a trail for prices -- valid even for the Bestmeat group of companies. The pigs can be delivered immediately within one to seven days' time after the auction. Independent livestock traders intend to increasingly make use of the internet market in order to become a counterpart to the concentrated slaughter industry. You can help to evade the slaughters' despotism by supplying your pigs! It's a challenge for every single pig keeper now.

Will there be slaughterhouses that can survive in the long term with paying better prices?

Dutch farmers are being united under the holding of the Sobel group of companies -- which contributes its capital to Bestmeat and is buyer at the same time. However, the farmers did not earn their money at slaughterhouses. Quite the reverse: the money comes from the waste removal business. Having earned their money this way, the farmers were able to buy three major slaughter companies that had been facing financial problems and thus were up for sale.

Dr. Uwe Tillmann, head of Moksel, the least important of those three slaughter companies, were the one to take the leadership. During the ISN's Strategic Convent which had been held in March 2004, he still had been very hopeful in announcing that they would increase the margin in the direction of the consumers. But now, he obviously seems to be unsuccessful in this: By means of the well-established game of changing tables and making internal prices at the individual slaughterhouses, the margin is being increased in the direction of the farmers. Recognise them by their deeds.

You undoubtedly have to admit that the Bestmeat group of companies' managers are behaving very skilfully. Those who haggle over the matter succeed in beguiling and winning over the one or the other for their ideas. Only recently, for instance, Werner Hilse (president of the Lower Saxony farmers' association) was elected as Nordfleisch's supervisory board chairman. According to the Companies Act, however, the supervisory board chairman is obliged to control the company's management and see to it that the company be profitable. That's what he is being paid for. It is his duty to look after the shareholders' interests -- and those of Bestmeat, who contributes the money -- instead of the suppliers' (the farmers') interests. So it seems to be in buying where the whole lot is found. Would that be some kind of clash of interests?

But if the farmers behave in the right way, increasing margins will fail, because pigs will be supplied to the better slaughter companies. It is true that Bestmeat is the most important buyer in Germany. But having a 17 % market share, they still are far from market domination.

Does anybody in the Bestmeat group of companies tackle the real problems at all?

The real problems consist of non-utilised slaughter capacities that are too high as well as of too high unit costs and personnel costs. Currently, the capital is still available for fundamentally restructuring the group of companies. Increasing the margin at the farmers' expense to guarantee that all companies included in the group will survive will be permitted neither by competition nor by the ISN in the long term.
It is the ISN's job to show the alternatives. This is just one of the reasons that made the ISN initiate the German pig price comparison. For only he who knows what happens on the market can take the right decisions. Transparency is trumps.

Keeping competition healthy must be supported by the pig keepers through supplying all competitors with pigs. It looks as if a small cruiser often is more manoeuvrable and more powerful in combat than is a large battleship.

This is the ISN's entrepreneurial farmers' response.