Snack bar owners were ripped off over their used frying oil
When a snack bar has finished deep-frying, fresh frying oil goes into the fryer and the dirty frying fat in one of those blue barrels goes to fat-processing companies. It recently came to light that, by making illegal agreements among themselves about prices, fat-processing companies seriously underpaid snack bar owners.
Making price agreements with your competitors and collectively underpaying your customers is called cartel formation. It is not allowed, which is why two companies that collect and process used frying fat have been fined 4 million euros. As a result of the price agreement, snack bars and other hospitality businesses were paid too little for years for the fat they had collected by these companies. Unfortunately, they will not receive the lost income retroactively; the fine paid by the companies that cheated goes straight into the treasury.
Fine
Names and numbers: the companies involved are Roti, Nieuwcom and UCO Kampen. They made agreements about how much they would pay when buying used frying fat from snack bars. The companies agreed among themselves which restaurant they would buy frying fat from and the maximum amount they would pay for it. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets established that they kept the price of frying fat artificially low in this way, and is therefore handing out a hefty fine. It is not only the companies that are being fined; the executives who cheated also have to pay: 190,000 euros each.
Not a penny
Roti and Nieuwcom have therefore been fined. Unfortunately, the affected business owners will not see a penny of that. If they want to, they will have to go to court themselves to claim compensation, but there is a chance that the legal costs will be higher than the compensation they are awarded. UCO Kampen has since gone bankrupt, so it escapes the consequences. Or does it? UCO’s parent company, Biodiesel Kampen, has to appear in court over allegations of fraud and participation in a criminal organisation. Charming bunch, those fat processors.
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Source: Misset Horeca, NOS
