The European Commission has cleared the proposed acquisition of Slaney Foods JV and Slaney Proteins (Ireland) by meat processor ABP Group and agri-food company Fane Valley after concluding that it would not adversely impact effective competition in the EU’s single market.
An investigation under the EU Merger Regulation was carried out by the European Commission to determine the impact of the proposed transaction on competition in the markets where the activities of the parties overlap.
The investigation focused on the purchasing of live cattle for slaughter in Ireland by ABP and Slaney Foods JV; the purchasing of live sheep and lambs for slaughter in an area encompassing Ireland and Northern Ireland by ABP, Slaney Foods JV and Fane Valley; the sale of fresh beef, lamb and mutton in Ireland including to industrial processors; the sale of fresh lamb and mutton meat in Belgium including to supermarket by ABP and Slaney Foods JV.
The Commission concluded that the transaction would not raise competition concerns in relation to any of these markets.
The Commission also assessed the potential increase of the slaughterhouses’ buyer power to the detriment of farmers and the potential impact on competition in the downstream markets relating to the sale of fresh meat. It found that a number of strong competitors will remain active after the merger and therefore concluded that parties will not be able to increase prices or impose detrimental conditions on retailers and industrial meat processors and ultimately on consumers.
As regards the collection of animal by-products generated by slaughtering activities in Ireland, the Commission found that the volumes of animal by-products that competing renderers currently collect from the Slaney Foods JV/Fane Valley are modest. The investigation also showed that, after the merger, rendering plants would continue to have sufficient access to animal by-products.
Finally, the Commission found that the transaction was unlikely to have a negative impact on slaughterhouses in relation to their disposal of animal by-products.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
