E-Paper
Cartoon anger hits Danish butter sales
Danish-Swedish dairy company Arla Foods said it is losing about 1 million pounds of sales a day in the Middle East.
Danish-Swedish dairy company Arla Foods said it is losing about 1 million pounds ($1.8 million) of sales a day in the Middle East due to Muslim anger over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper.
Europe's second-largest dairy producer said on Friday a boycott called last week against Danish cheese and butter had hit sales hard in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and throughout the region.
"We're losing about 1 million pounds sterling per day in turnover," said a spokesman for the group, which sells Lurpak butter, feta cheese and spreadable cheese in the region.
The Middle East is Arla's biggest market outside Europe with annual revenue of around $500 million. Saudi Arabia accounts for 60 per cent of that.
Arla said its products had been taken off the shelves of shops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait and described the situation in Egypt and Lebanon as critical. Algeria, Morocco and Oman were less affected, it added.
"The situation in Yemen is critical, the debate is raging in the media. There are demonstrations, and our distributors are keeping their staff at home," the spokesman added.
Arla Foods UK, 51 per cent owned by the Swedish-Danish group, said on Friday it was unaffected by the boycott.
Diplomatic relations soured between Denmark and a number of Muslim countries after Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of Mohammad, including one in which he appeared to carry a bomb in his turban.
The outrage spread across the Islamic world on Friday. Muslims condemned the cartoons as blasphemous, and more European newspapers published them, arguing for freedom of speech.
Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta, and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen summoned foreign envoys in Copenhagen to discuss the outcry.
Arla currently has 1,200 employees in the Middle East.
