Lindahl dairy has no Turkish delight

Sweden’s Lindahl dairy is back in the headlines again with its Turkish yogurt speciality. Dairy Industry International readers will recall the report in early 2010 when Lindahl was sued by the “Turkish” farmer whose heavily-moustached face was featured on the yogurt label and the labels of five other “Turkish” products from the dairy. The face turned out to belong to Athanasios Varzakanos, a Greek.

Varzakanos objected to being labelled a Turk and claimed €5 million in compensation from Lindahl, now a subsidiary of Sweden’s second-largest milk processor Skånemejerier which itself was taken over in June last year by the world’s largest processor, Lactalis from France.

Lindahl admitted the slip-up, blaming its advertising agency, and countered with a €200,000 offer to the mislabelled and maligned Greek. This was promptly turned down. Now, the Swedish dairy has finally agreed to pay a total of €2 m.

Meanwhile, Lindahl dairy has secured the face of another Greek – a farmer called Vassilis – who is now pictured sitting on a donkey on product labels. Lindahl has decided to change its sales slogan accordingly and now calls its yogurt and other products “Greek specialities”.

The trouble is, the dairy has announced the changes with a rather undiplomatic sales slogan that translates as: “I’m no Turk. I’m a Greek.” The way the slogan is written in Swedish gives the impression that being Greek is preferable, say critics who have immediately labelled it racist and insulting to the 100,000 Turkish-background inhabitants.

Getting away from the complications, Lindahl dairy as well as mother company Skånemejerier (annual turnover: €361 m) increasingly spotlight cow welfare and natural feeding policies for milk production which is claimed to attract more customers and to be increasing share of the Swedish market where the dominant Arla Foods has a 50% presence to date. In line with this planned increased Skånemejerier predicts a 20% rise in amount of milk processed for the present year. This should take annual deliveries from some 530 farmers in southern Sweden to 500 m kg and give the dairy some 10% of the home market.