Farmers demand huge pay hike

Norway’s powerful farmers’ organizations handed over a demand on Friday for nearly NOK 2 billion in increased income this year, mostly in the form of higher prices for meat and more direct support in the state budget. The demand amounts to around NOK 47,000 (USD 8,000) per farmer, much higher than annual pay raises for [...]

Namibia meat wards off shortage

One of Norway’s largest retail grocery store chains, NorgesGruppen, is arranging to import meat from Namibia because Norwegian cattle owners can’t supply enough beef. The Norwegian market faces a shortage estimated at around 17,000 tons this year. The looming domestic beef shortage is tied to last year’s infamous butter shortage, which prompted dairy cattle owners [...]

Dominant dairy draws more flak

Several grocery store owners claim Norway’s dairy conglomerate Tine, which regulates and controls the national market, still isn’t managing to produce enough butter to meet demand. Meanwhile, Tine’s role as market regulator remains under fire, food prices have been confirmed as the highest in Europe, and now the dairy has even landed in trouble over [...]

Butter supplies remain uncertain

Norway’s embattled dairy monopoly Tine is still struggling to supply enough butter to meet demand, and has asked for more reductions in the country’s protectionist import tariffs to allow more foreign butter into the market. Tine felt a need to request tariff reductions until January 1, making the third time this autumn alone that the [...]

New ‘butter crisis’ looms

Officials at Norwegian dairy cooperative Tine are trying to ward off another looming “butter crisis” like the one that left grocery store shelves bare of butter last winter. They blame the new shortage on Norwegian cattle who aren’t producing enough milk. Tine, which controls 80 percent of the market for dairy products in Norway, is [...]

Consumers punish dairy ‘regulator’

Norwegian consumers clearly haven’t forgotten last winter’s nationwide butter shortage, blamed on dairy cooperative Tine’s failure to head it off. Now Tine, also known as the “market regulator” for dairy products in Norway, has lost consumer confidence, reported poorer financial results and must once again import French butter. An annual ranking of Norway’s best-liked companies, [...]

Import restrictions eased to spread butter

The Norwegian market needs as many as 1,500 more tons of butter than what’s available from Norwegian producers, so the state is lowering the high, protective customs duties placed on foreign butter. That means more butter from places like France and Belgium may be on local store shelves soon. Norway slid into a highly controversial [...]

New butter woes spread cost cut calls

Norway’s two largest non-socialist parties, the Conservatives (Høyre) and the Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp), think it’s possible to cut billions in state funding for agriculture, by reducing the bureaucracy that protects Norwegian farming and by promoting more free-market mechanisms. Their proposals come amidst complaints of high food prices and another possible butter shortage. Norwegian Broadcasting [...]

Tempers rise over bread and butter

A highly unpopular shortage of butter in Norwegian stores last fall and winter hasn’t stopped farmers from now trying to produce a shortage of bread. Their attempt to heat up support for their cause, however, may only backfire with consumers, while bakeries claim they have enough flour supplies to keep store shelves stocked. The farmers, [...]

Consumer council opposes higher cheese tariffs

Norway’s consumer council Forbrukerrådet opposes an attempt by Norwegian dairy cooperative Tine to protect itself from competition by boosting import tariffs on foreign cheese. Tine officials have said they plan to ask state officials to recalculate tariffs to protect the market for Norwegian cheese. The new tariffs would make imported cheeses such as Cheddar, Gruyére and [...]

Dairy giant sours its own image

UPDATED: Norway’s large and powerful dairy cooperative Tine, bashed for failing to produce enough butter last year, now risks angering Norwegian consumers and its own farmer-members once again. It recently made an attempt to further block cheese imports, to protect its own products and high prices, and now comes news that Tine’s board chairman is [...]