Another Reason for Strong Anti-Trust Laws

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 11:50:26 AM PDT

The show on Kraft pointed to Philip Morris' decision to buy Kraft as a means to keep TV shows from criticizing their cigarettes. After cigarettes were no longer allowed to advertise on TV, they had no way to threaten TV networks with the loss of their advertising dollars if they were a tobacco company only - so they went into the food business by purchasing Kraft. Now the TV networks would know that if they criticized cigarettes, they would lose Kraft's advertising money.

This applies beyond the example of Philip Morris and Kraft (and, in fact, they have not owned Kraft for a few years now). Our grocery stores are filled with products by Nestle, Kraft, PepsiCo, Unilever, and a few other companies. The loss of just ONE of these advertisers would be a major blow to any media outlet. That keeps them quiet about reporting on all of the brands owned by these companies. If we didn't allow such consolidation of our food companies, then our news shows would have more freedom to tell the truth about individual brands without fearing the loss of ALL of their advertising dollars. Alternatively, we could move to a new model in which advertising was not needed because our news shows were funded publicly (like PBS and NPR) but even PBS and NPR take money from "sponsors." All of this serves to reduce the amount of information we are getting from our "news."

Big Food is FOR Food Safety Regulations?

by: Jill Richardson

Thu May 28, 2009 at 04:00:00 AM PDT

To take stock of the fight we're going to have, I began digging around lobbying records. Who's for what, and how much money are they spending. Let's see here:

Company	Amount (Total Lobbying, Not Just Food Safety) First quarter 2009 only
Food Marketing Institute Kraft Foods Grocery Manufacturers Association Nestle Sodexo Miller/Coors National Restaurant Association 3M PepsiCo Safeway General Mills Consumers Union Center for Science in the Public Interest	$1,063,000 $770,000 $720,000 $616,843 $590,000 $550,000 $447,000 $400,000 $430,000 $350,000 $240,000 $80,000 $32,983

But wait! Before you get worried that industry is outspending consumer advocacy groups and the lobbyists are trying to kill this legislation - apparently Kraft, Kellogg, and General Mills are now FOR food safety reform! Even the Grocery Manufacturers sound open to it. My hunch? First of all, these guys see the changes coming down the pike no matter what. They want to sound agreeable so that they can make sure that whatever reform occurs is to their own liking.

And second of all, they lost a lot of money from the peanut butter incident. So in that sense, they really DO want safe food. But in the hearings thus far, they definitely sounded hesitant about how much regulation they were actually interested in. Kellogg sounded particularly uncomfortable with unannounced inspections, user fees paid to the FDA to cover the cost of inspections, and microbial testing for pathogens. Remember, their #1 priority isn't food safety, it's profit. They are only interested in food safety as a means to that end.

UPDATE: Here's what the Grocery Manufacturers has to say about the food safety bill:

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the food industry, supports much of the legislation but objects to a $1,000 annual registration fee that would be required of all food facilities to help pay for the FDA's increased oversight. The association also objects to some of the tracing requirements, saying they would create a financial burden.