The world of food, how 10 companies control almost every brand in the world now

Original Post By http://www.ilmondoit.info/

Food industry, that's who are the masters of the food

Are ten lords who control alone more than 70 percent of the dishes on the planet. These corporations are run 500 brands that enter our homes every day. So pasta, cookies and coffee become global, even in Italy. And the big issues, such as the use of oils and fats in products, are decided at the table

ARE sitting around the table of the world and control alone more than 70 percent of the dishes on the planet. 10 are the lords of the food industry: $ 450 billion in annual revenue and 7,000 billion capitalization, the equivalent of the sum of the GDP of the poorest countries on Earth. Are not always well-known names in Italian. For a century, Coca Cola is the synonym of the multinational but only the insiders know the Mondelez. A little 'more numerous are Italians who remember the Kraft, its old name of Mondelez. Almost all instead met at the supermarket brands such as Toblerone, Milka and Philadelphia. "The 500 brands due to the ten lords of the table - explains Roberto Barbieri, chief executive of Oxfam Italy - are often experienced by consumers as independent holdings. In reality they are part of multinationals can affect not only the food policies of the West but also the social policies of the poorest countries. "

THE GRAPHIC OXFAM: THE MAP OF MULTINATIONAL FOOD BUSINESS

To make clear the picture there is the paradox of the rich man, the protagonist of the Gospel parable. While they are 900 million people suffering from hunger (UN figures in September 2014) and living below the banquet table hoping the crumbs are 1.4 billion men and women in the world have the problem of overweight. "They are both products of the same system - observes Barbieri - because 80 percent of those who can not feed themselves live in the countryside and work to produce food." Oxfam is an organization that aims to help poor people in the world trying to redere virtuous, with campaigns and collections of signatures, behavior of multinational food. The system is to put pressure on the image of the food groups in the West to push them to improve social policies in the producing countries. It happened with Nestlé, Mars and Mondelez regard to the rights of women working in cocoa plantations. Wonders to happen with Coca Cola and Pepsi to avoid the phenomenon of land grabbing, forced expropriation of land where it is grown sugarcane. "Already today - says Oxfam - are planted with sugar 31 million hectares of land, the equivalent of the area of ​​Italy."

The trend towards concentration of brands is in place for some time and covers practically all food sectors. There are exceptions almost inevitable as milk and wine. We are of course talking about big corporations. But if in the wine sector blocking the creation of large groups is due to a strong link with the territory (each hill is a different winery), the beer is not so long ago: the three major global brands, the Belgians in In Bev (Artois, Beck's and Brazil's Anctartica), the South African SABMiller and Dutch Heineken control alone 60 percent of worldwide sales and collect 80 percent of the profits. A similar concentration is going to happen in the coffee sector. "The example of the beer - explains Antonio Baravalle, for Lavazza - shows that food sectors in the concentration of ownership increases the profits." So there is to imagine that in the next few years the ten lords who rule the tables of the world will fall yet? "I think there is a limit. Merge even more will not be easy. It seems more likely that each of the ten groups in the time to absorb other smaller groups. "

Although, on closer look at the composition of the table, not all the lords of the food have the same consistency. Trying to put them in line for sales, Nestlé is by far the largest (90.3 billion) of the runner, the PepsiCola (66.5 billion). Despite its iconic value, as we say today, Coca Cola is well detached from the historic rival and it stops at 44 billion turnover, overridden by Unilever (60) and Mondelez (55). At the bottom of the standings with Kellogg's $ 13 billion in annual revenue. With these marked differences between the first ten Ranked there is, in theory, still room, for weddings. "But it can also happen - explains Baravalle - that one of the great groups decides to get rid of a brand because it does not consider global enough". This is what has happened, for example, with the choice of Mondelez to surrender its brands of coffee. And it is what happened in the past years to Findus, a time of Nestle and Unilever and now majority owned by an investment fund. Findus continues to be a great brand but its defect, according to the feedback of the multinationals, is to be strong only in some markets. Another trend is to detect a mark because local food face vehicle penetration of a large group in a market. If Unilever, for example, decide one day to buy a local brand in an Asian country, will do especially for setting foot in that market and be able to assist after a short time with one of its global brands.

After decades of mergers and other concentrations, we will one day to deliver to a single big brother the keys of the dispensation of the world? That of a planet where a single large multinational check all food brands is certainly a nightmare scenario. But like all processes of concentration, even the food inevitably creates its antibodies. It happens in politics, where both unions were born between separatist movements and territorial; happens, so much more virtuous, with the rise in the food product kilometer zero, the regional offices, the systems of handicraft production. Those who decide to resist the temptation to sell the company to the multinationals is inevitably led to enhance its brand by highlighting the link with the territory.

Italy is certainly one of the countries of the world where the risk of concentration of food producers is less strong. A little 'particularism that characterizes our economy asphyxiated. A country dominated by the model for many aspects of the negative small and medium enterprises, which in the field of food could turn the defect in virtue. This is demonstrated by a study conducted by the agency Next with a questionnaire addressed to the Italian food companies. The list of the main ones is said that we are well below the level of the global giants. The only one that comes close is the turnover for Ferrero, with € 8.1 billion of annual revenue, about $ 10 billion, a little less than 13 billion of Kellogg's. The others are far behind. The Barilla invoice 3.5 billion euro and is limited by the fact that they have a very business-like connotation locally as the pasta. Counted on the fingers of one hand over the other Italian billion turnover: the Cremonini group (3.5) Parmalat (1.4), Amadori (1.3) Lavazza (1), Conserve Italy (1). Immediately below the level of one billion, there are Water San Benedetto, Galbani and Granarolo.

It is evident that the 11 lords of Italian food are much less powerful than the world table of diners. One wonders if the kings of food, in Italy and in the world, have common policies, secret agreements, they will agree to decide what to eat in the next thirty years. The idea of ​​a Trilateral food, a super-secret of our kitchens, is perhaps fanciful: "I agree that putting so can be an exercise in fantasy pressed Baravalle - but I'd be naive to exclude that on the major policy issues food large groups do not exercise, it is legitimate, their pressure on politicians. " Of course, the discussion of EU regulations on labeling affected and has inevitably suffered from the want of the lords of the food. Every detail more or less to be added on the information sheet for consumers carries billion investment. The most sensational case erupted recently and covers oils used: so far is enough to write that it is generically of "vegetable oils". But if tomorrow the producers were forced to specify what those oils, how many would have the courage to write that use palm oil, significantly poorer than that of oil? Every now and then sit around a table and decide on common strategies can be helpful. Even for the gentlemen of the food.