Marketing merger fears blight potato industry

Monday 23rd February 2004, 12:00AM GMT.

SOME potato growers have been talking about ‘a mood of fear and mistrust’ in the countryside following the merger of the marketing company JPMO with the newly formed company Jersey Royal (Potato Marketing) Ltd.

This, growers are saying, is a merger that has happened ‘behind their backs’ and has formed a virtual monopoly.And this monopoly has been created, they say, at a time when the arrival of the promised Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority is still a long way off.As reported previously, there has been a merger of five, possibly more, major growers into a single corporate farm to take advantage of economies of scale.

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