I wonder if that was behind the recent regional distributor changes (a merger of two )? 

That gives the manufacturers a way to control a larger volume of product going to the stores, so if BrandX is being sold under the minimum fixed price, the letter like the pet store received from OMH in the link threatening to "stop shipping the brand to the store for as long as six months if price-cutting continued" would be like a group using that distributor could refuse to ship and impact the store stock on a larger number of products....

Wow, giving retailers/consumers the idea that they should refuse to buy a product due to a) customer service b) pricing c) quality control issues.... or if the boycott of that OMH product should be extended to the other brands and the old Italian gesture of wiping the chin be used... 

Frankly "control the market games"  like these make homemade look really, really good or making sure we find small companies out of the loop of PFI & not large conglomerates. (please tell my pitas that)

Odd isn't it that nowhere is mentioned consumers wanting safe, nutritious, healthy, quality products & customer service & willing to pay more for that. The fact that we started paying more  instead going to homemade may be a cross we have to bear as another backlash of the pet food recall of 2007... higher prices across the board and no long term improvement in the performance of pet food companies & products... they'll putting too much in marketing/advertising instead of their products... (additional revenues from the higher prices we're paying)?

sigh, dang.