Südzucker

Südzucker is a large German sugar producer, associated with Mannheim and with beet grown in the south. It refines beet into sugar and sells a large share of it to industrial food companies. Those contracts, not the paper bag in a kitchen, are the sales that decide whether the processors are competing.

The Commission fined Südzucker, Nordzucker, and Pfeifer & Langen for a cartel among German beet-sugar producers. Südzucker is the southern group, Nordzucker the northern one, and Pfeifer & Langen a separate producer. The finding is that these competitors coordinated instead of contesting industrial customers. Regional beet sheds do not make the companies a single firm. They were rivals.

The library status is fined. No fine is stated for Südzucker and none for the cartel total. A confectioner or a drinks company that treated Südzucker as one of three real options was the buyer the coordination affected.

Southern German beet processing and bulk sugar sales are Südzucker's place in the cartel.

Industrial customers, food factories buying on contract, are the purchasers.

Nordzucker and Pfeifer & Langen are the other German producers in the decision.

A food manufacturer's annual sugar tender is the competitive moment. Coordinated processors turn that tender into an allocation.

Shoppers see a biscuit price, not a Südzucker invoice, so the upstream cartel does not announce itself on the packet.