Find out who really owns our ethical food brands

I don’t think that this is a big deal at all. The companies, as far as I know, were created and began as small enterprises that became successful and thus were bought out. The big corporations bought them because they were doing well on their own. They don’t change things because “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” they just wanted to make more money.

A professor back in 2009 mapped and animated the change of organic industry structures. It shows clearly how small independent firms are bought by investment firms and they then get sold onto transnational food processors.

In contrast to acquisitions, most introductions of organic versions of well-known brands occurred after the implementation of the USDA standard in 2002. New organic brands are represented here as smaller, red ovals. More than half of the top 30 food processors in North America have engaged in this strategy. Some, such as M&M Mars’ Dove Organic, were developed specifically for retail giant Wal-Mart, which increased its organic offerings in 2006. While corporate parentage is easily apparent for the majority of these products, Anhueser-Busch first positioned its introductions of Wild Hop and Stone Mill organic beers as if they were unaffiliated micro-brews. This stealth strategy was quickly abandoned after it was revealed in the San Francisco Chronicle (7).

He concludes,
The changing structure of the industry has coincided with the loss of other ideals, however, such as improving the economic viability of small-scale farms, minimizing the distance foods are transported, and encouraging the consumption of whole, unprocessed foods (13). These impacts are not easily apparent, however, as the ownership changes represented in this project are deliberately hidden by a number of firms.

It is important to read the label carefully if you care what you eat. Personally I try to avoid shopping in large supermarkets and stick to growing my own fruit and vegetables. When it comes to chocolate, the British climate isn’t exactly perfect for chocolate growing so I will have to stick to the Green and Blacks. At least I’m trying to support something with an ‘ethical claim’.

I recently did some background research on Red Sky Crisps (Potato Chips). I was enraged by the packaging which if you read the back of the pack would lead you to think they we’re manufactured by tree loving hippies doing all the could to save the planet.

The thing is you cannot recycle the packaging in anyway what-so-ever. The fact that the reply email came from Pepsi Co, not the tree loving hippies I had imagined explained a lot.

There is a set of directories “Who Owns Whom” that shows company relationships. Probably best looked at in a library unless you have a spare £3700 for the worldwide set.

Ownership changes happen all the time. Those who are shocked that Green and Blacks are not independent must have been asleep in May 2005 when they were bought by Cadbury Schweppes. It was a huge news story at the time ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4543583.stm ). That they are now owned by Kraft is a result of the January 2010 takeover of Cadbury Schweppes by Kraft.