AFP, TOKYO
Summer is coming, a boom time for ice cream makers, but Japanese authorities have raided six major firms on suspicion of colluding to raise prices. Among the country’s biggest ice cream firms, the six “are suspected of colluding” to hike prices, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. Company officials are thought to have sent e-mails or met up for years to coordinate the timing and size of hikes, the unnamed source said.
Ice cream products are displayed in a convenience store in Tokyo yesterday.
Officials from the Japan Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday searched the head offices of Meiji Co, Morinaga Milk Industry Co, Lotte Co, Ezaki Glico Co, Morinaga & Co and Akagi Nyugyo Co, company officials and the source said. Since around 2022, the ice cream companies have raised retail prices every year at around the same time, local media reported.
The commission is also investigating whether the companies took advantage of inflation to raise prices beyond what was justified by a spike in raw ingredient costs, Kyodo News reported. Five of the companies issued statements in the past two days saying the commission had raided their offices and that they “would cooperate with the investigation.” Natsuyo Suzuki of Akagi Nyugo said that the firm would work with investigators following an “on-site inspection.” If the commission concludes that there was a cartel, the antitrust watchdog would order the firms to improve their business practices and pay a fine. In the fiscal year ending in March, ice cream sales in Japan hit a record high of more than ￥660 billion (US$4.12 billion), according to the Japan Ice Cream Association, as the country sweltered through its hottest summer since records began in 1989.
