COPENHAGEN, April 6, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Scandinavian food group Arla, Europe's second largest dairy firm, confirmed on Thursday, April 6, that its products were back on shelves in Muslim countries after weeks of boycott following the publication of the Danish cartoons mocking Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him).
"Butter and cheese from Arla Foods are back in 3,000 shops and supermarkets in the Middle East," the company said in a statement cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The dairy giant said it has secured a promise from thirty one of its largest retail customers in Saudi Arabia to end boycott of its products as of Saturday, April 8.
"We're delighted that our largest Saudi customers have decided to lift the boycott," Arla spokesman Finn Hansen said.
Arla has been the hardest-hit by a global Muslim boycott of Danish products after Denmark's mass-circulation daily Jyllands-Posten commissioned and printed in September twelve caricatures lampooning Prophet Muhammad.
Prior to the boycott, Arla products were sold at 50,000 outlets throughout the Middle East.
It registered sales in the Middle East last year of 3.2 billion kroner (402 million euros, 495 million dollars), a third of which were in Saudi Arabia.
Arla, which does between six and eight percent of its business in Arab countries, said the boycott was costing it about 1.6 million dollars a day.
The boycott end comes following a call from Muslim scholars after the company published on Sunday, March 19, full-page ads in papers across the Middle East denouncing the cartoons publication.
Media Blitz
The dairy giant is launching a special media campaign in Saudi Arabia.
"We are also starting from Saturday a campaign on Saudi televisions and our salesmen are driving around explaining to shops and consumers our position," Arla's regional director, Jan Pederson, told Reuters.
The Scandinavian firm denied, however, reports it was planning to sponsor an international conference to promote understanding between religions.
A full-page ad in the London-based Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat said Arla has decided to sponsor an international conference on Prophet Muhammad with a view to (promoting) better understanding between the world's religions and cultures.
"Arla Foods is not sponsoring such a conference and we haven't published advertisements of this type," spokesman Louis Honore told the Danish news agency Ritzau.
He, however, said the company was interested in supporting a conference or seminar series on building bridges between cultures.
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