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The Ministry of Agriculture has imposed its first battery of sanctions on 69 Spanish supermarkets and agri-food companies since the Food Chain Law came into force in 2020. The legislation aims to guarantee fair prices for farmers and ranchers in Spain in every link of the food chain so that nobody works at a loss.

 

Carrefour, Dia, García Carrión and the Galician hypermarket chain Froiz are among the best-known entities to have received substantial fines, which can be as high as one million euros for severe breaches.

 

The Food Information and Control Agency (AICA) has slapped the Carrefour shopping centre chain with a sanction of 3,001 euros for failing to meet payment deadlines, the same penalty as Distribuciones Froiz. In the case of Dia Retail Spain, there are two fines also for skipping the payment terms of 3,0001 and 3,899 euros.

 

The García Carrión group, which owns popular brands like Don Simón has been fined 9,147 euros for failing to meet payment deadlines, but the highest sanction of all was handed down to Ray Lech, an industry based in Jaén whose activity is the wholesale trade of dairy products, eggs and oils, who must now pay 11,500 euros for not formalising its contracts in writing. This is on top of another 3,001 euros they owe for failing to meet payment deadlines.

 

In the Region of Murcia, 11 companies have received sanctions totalling 43,525 euros.

 

Most of the sanctions were for non-compliance with the payment deadlines, but Bodegas Alceño (wine producers from Murcia, fined 3,001 euros) and Inleit Ingredients (Galician dairy producer and distributor, fined 9,000 euros) were penalised for making unauthorised changes to contract prices.

 

"Consumers and society must know, by name and surname, who is doing bad business practices that harm farmers and ranchers," the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA) said in a statement following the publication of the penalties.

 

 

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