A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans, new analysis reveals.
A joint investigation by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch found that consumer choice is largely an illusion – despite supermarket shelves and fridges brimming with different brands.
In fact, a few powerful transnational companies dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and supermarkets to cereals and beers.
The size, power and profits of these mega companies have expanded thanks to political lobbying and weak regulation which enabled a wave of unchecked mergers and acquisitions. This matters because the size and influence of these mega-companies enables them to largely dictate what America’s 2 million farmers grow and how much they are paid, as well as what consumers eat and how much our groceries cost.
It also means those who harvest, pack and sell us our food have the least power: at least half of the 10 lowest-paid […]
Would love to see how much goes for the packaging/advertising and the CEO/corporate salaries and transport/gas prices. We’re not buying food, we’re subsidizing capitalism! Oh, draining our aquifers to ship plastic bottles mostly of water.
Interesting. Another reason NOT to drink sodas and eat packaged foods (and maybe a good reason for enjoying craft beers!) though the tea statistic surprises me a bit. I’ll have to check out who owns the Rishi Tea Company, my favorite teas.
The “illness-profit system” is creating worse havoc in my life as UPMC has gone crazy with all their prices and I may not be able to see my doctor much anymore because a 15 minute visit now costs over $176, and used to cost only $40 at the most. Of course food prices gouge me also, but I grow 50% of my own food so it does not hurt my budget as much as other people.