Got cheap milk? Illegal dairy prices.

• Author: Ross, John K.
• Position: Citings - Brief article

ALERTED BY an anonymous tipster, authorities rushed to a grocery store in Mandeville, Louisiana, in January to inspect the milk. Fresh Market was not selling rotten milk. Rather, a State Agriculture and Forestry Commission auditor discovered that the milk, on sale for $2.99 a gallon, cost too little.

Louisiana's Dairy Stabilization Law requires merchants to charge 6 percent more than cost. Failure to do so is a "disruptive trade practice" that could "injure, reduce, prevent, or destroy competition."

State Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain says the law is necessary to keep the price of milk low. Otherwise, a would-be monopolist could sell milk below cost, drive its competitors into...