Large-scale food conglomerates exert outsized influence over what is produced and eaten around the world.
Abrania Marrero for the Environmental Health News
Source: USDA, 2021
The
concept of a food system in
research classically follows a simple progression: a one-track path from farms
to plates.
Equal
space and weight are often given to stops along the way, including food
processing, transportation, and retail. The diagrams also typically float aloof
in space—unattached to any legal system, economy, or private entity. Despite
their alluring simplicity, these characterizations fail to capture true
imbalances of power and responsibility in food production, standing in stark
contrast to modern food industry realities.
Large-scale food and beverage companies, engaged in processing and manufacturing raw agricultural materials for profit in global markets, are not just another step in the food system path. They play an outsized role in driving disparities in human health and environmental sustainability.
Food
processing companies currently make one fourth of every dollar spent on
groceries in the U.S., with just a handful of companies controlling
as much as 98.4% of the market share in some categories of
prepared foods. By comparison, the country’s more than 2.5 million farmworkers,
the majority of which are undocumented and unprotected by fair wage laws, get
just eight cents for every dollar spent on groceries.
Food processing companies like Nestlé (Switzerland), Coca Cola (U.S.), Danone (France), and Unilever (United Kingdom/Netherlands) are bottlenecks in the global food system, exerting undue influence over both what and how much is produced by farmers upstream as well as what and how much is eaten by consumers downstream.
As
Jeffrey Sachs poignantly pointed out prior to the United Nations’ recent Food Systems Summit, “We have a world food
system. It is based on large multi-national companies; it is based on private
profits; and it is based on a radical denial of the rights of poor people.”
Pressure
on farms
Despite
this concentration of power and wealth, international agendas for public health
and sustainable food production often call for reform not by the most powerful
food companies but, instead, by farmers and consumers.
The agricultural sector—a diverse set of small-, medium-, and large-scale producers found around the world—is widely criticized for greenhouse gas emissions, land deterioration, and water use. Little is mentioned, however, about the artificial demand created by food processing companies for derivatives of farmers’ crops and livestock, including refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and animal-sourced meats and fats.
By
encouraging overeating in their meals and product formulations, fast food
companies and food processors create excess consumer demand, putting undue
pressure on farms to supply massive quantities of cheap, unsustainably produced
foods.
Far
from determining the ultimate use of the whole seeds, grains, vegetables, and
legumes they produce, farmers are increasingly trapped in cycles of
dependence—relying on expensive and contractually bound use of pesticides and
fertilizers to increase yields and compete in the global market. Their lands
and production capacities are consequently degraded, creating new economic
pressures and driving increased rates of suicide,
all to meet food processing companies’ ever-heightening demands.
Blaming
the consumer
Instead of accountability, a U.N. business declaration called for food processing companies to “incentivize consumers as agents of change to create demand for sustainably produced, high quality healthy and nutritious diets.”
Efforts such as Meatless Mondays, public education campaigns,
and by-the-pound meat taxes on consumer
purchases are often proposed as solutions to the bad behavior
of individual consumers, who are purportedly “at the end of the supply chain [and] arguably in the
best position to drive positive change along its entirety,"
wrote the authors of a 2020 article in Nature.
But
changing consumer behavior is not a panacea. Efforts to shift diets not only
face deep-rooted and reasonably held cultural norms, they must also come to
terms with worsening food environments; poor purchasing power for healthier
food alternatives like whole fruits, legumes, and vegetables; and an outcry
against colonialism in the face of efforts to veganize already malnourished,
protein-poor diets in low- and middle-income countries.
Despite
these ethical concerns, many in the academic community continue to promote
these and other small-scale interventions (urban agriculture is another
example), which fail to reflect the lived realities of impoverished households
and allow food processing companies to evade their own
responsibilities—including their disproportionate influence over millions of
diets around the world.
Although
we’d like to believe that all food options are equally accessible, global food
environments are being increasingly monopolized by
large and highly consolidated food and beverage companies, each flooding
grocery aisles with addictive products, employing aggressive marketing
strategies, and, ultimately, driving excess consumption and diet-related
chronic disease.
As outlined by Consumer International, “Many of the approaches for achieving the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and climate targets rely heavily on consumers making different purchasing choices, or modifying their usage of goods or products and services. But this is not a fair responsibility to place on consumers where the current structure of the marketplace favors unsustainable options.”
Holding
food processing companies accountable
Public health researchers must recognize the responsibility food processing companies have to reduce the health and environmental costs of their products.
Efforts such as the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s Four Pillar Framework fill this gap in advocacy and provide clear and practical guidance on corporate alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals in the food industry, outlining specific responsibilities held by the private sector to remedy past harms and modify business strategies to more ethically and sustainably produce healthy foods.
As the bottleneck of power and wealth concentration in the food
supply chain, the food processing industry is a far more effective and
efficient target of reform than the diverse hundreds of millions of global
consumers and farmers at opposite ends of the food system.
Research
and policy must identify how food processing companies can mitigate damages
caused to human health and natural environments. Instead of burdening consumers
(who already shoulder the hidden cost of food through health care,
pollution cleanups, and other public services) with increased prices or taxing
of unhealthy foods, solutions should prioritize consumer protection by taking
into account the intrinsic disparities of
the consumer-supplier relationship, including disparities in bargaining power,
knowledge, and resources.
Greater
transparency of the environmental and social risks incurred by all actors in
the food supply chain, not just agricultural producers alone, is needed so that
consumers, policymakers, and investors alike can disfavor risky and
unsustainable business practices. Government regulation must also look beyond
current marketing and labeling laws (which simply put the onus of informed
decision-making back on the consumer) to set and enforce strict standards for
what food and beverage products can be legally produced and sold.
Food
processing plays an important role in food and nutrition security, extending shelf-life
and fortifying staple foods with essential vitamins and minerals. Far from
complete abolition, increased attention and accountability for these powerful
private sector players can ensure that food production contributes to—and does
not continue to impede—human and planetary health.
