I remember reading this article over the summer, and since it was brought up in class I figured I’d revisit this awful chart of just how controlled America’s food supply is by corporations.

Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting Hershey Park, which reminded me of just how consolidated many food businesses are- for cheap, average quality chocolate, the American (and at this point, any) consumer has the choice between Hershey, Nestle, or Mars, which is controlled by Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Mars, all of which control far more than bars of candy. While marketing has allowed for there to seem like there are thousands of different “brands” it is in fact only ten to twelve massive companies duking it out for the billions of dollars exchanged in the market every day.

This market structure forces the consumer to surrender power in several different ways. First of all, the marketing strategy of creating sub brands makes the consumer think they have economic power at the shelves, when truly they are supporting the same company whether they decide to buy Skittles or Uncle Ben’s rice. Not only does this destroy true competition, but the consumer has no idea of what processes their food went through before ending up in the brightly colored bag or box shouting at them from the shelves. This is detrimental to the health and well being of the consumer, since the same companies are being forked over money to companies to continue to poison the people and the environment.

On a relevant topic to class, it’s shocking how many of these foods are driven by the existence of high fructose corn syrup (and in turn corn). If it weren’t for this thick, sticky product, most of these corporate giants would not have the economic muscles they are able to flex today. Without high fructose corn syrup, sodas, candies, and other products would not be the same, and would most likely be more expensive and therefore not a commodity with the rock-bottom prices the consumer is used to today.

Overall, it’s shocking on both an economic and environmental level how controlled the supermarket is by so few corporations. The patterns of horizontal and vertical integration have followed through on more than agriculture and are invasive to the market we’re used to today.

http://www.ryot.org/food-corporations-chart-all-your-food/756513