Competition authority: If procurement costs less than the shelf price, it is fair

Imported UHT milk is being sold in Croatian stores for as little as 0.34 euros per litre, about half the price of a comparable domestic product and well below the government’s permitted maximum.

Retailers have promoted Alpia milk with 2.8% milk fat at the discounted price. The article contrasts it with domestic Moja kravica milk, which currently sells for at least 0.69 euros per litre. That makes the domestic product roughly twice as expensive.

The pricing has angered Croatian dairy processors. They say a retail price of 0.34 euros cannot cover the cost of raw milk, processing, energy, packaging, logistics, transport, labour and taxes. The industry argues that the practice adds pressure to Croatia’s weak milk production, which meets less than half of domestic needs.

Imported milk is considered problematic by local producers because it takes part of the shelf space and sales from domestic milk, disrupting the pricing policy built around local products. The competition authority’s position, reflected in the headline, is that the sale remains fair when retailers procure the product more cheaply than its shelf price.