Stones flew through the air and tear gas was fired when angry milk producers broke into a dairy company in Ioannina, western Greece. Hundreds of milk farmers gathered on Friday morning outside “Dodoni” milc factory demanding their money.
“We have been unpaid for four months, we cannot feed our families,” they said, claiming the money for milk they have delivered already.
more pictures: epiruspost
The angry breeders broke the main gate of the factory and entered the factory yard, where they were confronted with riot police squads.
more pictures: Zougla.gr,
A little earlier, the company had informed them that outstanding debts of April will be paid in August and those debts of May will be paid in September.
The breeders had given a deadline to Dodoni to pay all outstanding debts by July 24th 2013.
Dairy factory Dodoni was one of the first enterprises that they had been privatized. The majority stake belonged to former state bank “Agrotiki”. In October 2012, Dodoni was sold to Russian fund Strategic Initiatives UK LLP and SIMOS FOOD GROUP for 20 million euro.
The new owners claimed that payment delays are due to ‘liquidity shortage due to the economic crisis”.
In the official website of Dodoni we read:
“Agricultural Dairy Industry of Epirus S.A DODONI was established in 1963 by the Agricultural Bank of Greece and 6 Unions of Agricultural Cooperatives of the Epirus region. Today, DODONI is the leading Greek producer and exporter of cheese products. In 2012 the turnover came to 83.5 million € and net profits according to IFRS reached 463 thousands €.
DODONI collects the milk from 6.000 stockbreeders from Epirus area.”
PS no liquidity? an investment company making fail investment? tsk tsk tsk …
