I think Marion Nestle says it best here.

Publicly traded companies cannot simply make a profit. They must grow profits and report growth to Wall Street every 90 days. This requirement is tough on all corporations, but especially tough on those selling food. People can only eat so much.

I wonder where Mubarak is getting all that money to pay the thugs he sent out into the street?

Pro-Mubarak thugs charged into Tahrir Square on horses and camels in an effort to save the embattled Egyptian dictator. It was not long ago that the regime was being propped up by a different breed of supporter: foreign investors arriving on corporate jets with billions of dollars in capital.

The guilty mentioned are BP, Nestle, Procter and Gamble, Electrolux, Saint-Gobain and PepsiCo.

The appeal of Egypt for foreign investors is not just better access to a market of 80 million consumers. As in China, a repressive political environment has weakened the power of labor and kept down wages to the advantage of major employers, both foreign and domestic.

It would seem that the Cadbury Easter Bunny has been consorting with a cast of maniacal chocolate Ooompa Loompas!

Cadbury, Mars, Hershey and Nestlé have been served with a lawsuit alleging that they conspired to push up the prices of their chocolate bars over most of the last decade, drawing on claims that senior executives shared secret price information in brown envelopes and via distributors.

The suit, served in Hershey’s home state of Pennsylvania by a Minnesota grocery chain called Supervalu, adds to a mountain of litigation and regulatory scrutiny over alleged price-fixing.

Why this reminds me of Matt Damon in The Informant! Looks like Archers Daniel Midland aren’t the only ones out there price-fixing.

I just came across the International Labor Rights Forum’s 2009 report “Working for Scrooge: Worst Companies of 2009 for the Right to Associate.” In the PDF report they highlight Dole, Kohl’s, Kraft & Nestle. You can send an email to these corporations here and you can use Twitter to tweet to them here.

Dole

As the world’s largest producer and marketer of
fresh fruit, Dole operates in over 90 countries and
manages some 45,000 employees. The company’s
most expansive project is in pineapple production,
which spans from Ecuador to the Philippines.
Unfortunately, it is no coincidence that only 2% of
pineapple workers are unionized. Due to threats
against trade unionists and the mistreatment of
workers seeking to organize, Dole has the fewest trade
unions in Latin America. The company has been
accused of ties with military violence against trade
unionists, with instances of killings and disappearances
of union leaders.

Kohl’s

Unfortunately Kohl’s focus on sustainability hasn’t
spilled over to the labor rights of its workers. Kohl’s
has been connected to a number of sweatshops over
the past two decades and yet hasn’t taken the necessary
steps to implement its code of conduct (called the
Terms of Engagement) which includes freedom of
association. To this day, Kohl’s has yet to take any
concrete action to make it’s supplier conform with
it’s code even though its own Terms of Engagement
indicate that “Kohl’s will work with the Business
Partner to remediate the violation if at all possible.”6

Kraft

Chicago-based Kraft Foods is the largest food
company in the US and the second largest in the
world (after Nestle S.A.). It has recently fired
workers for protesting health conditions at a Kraft
factory in Argentina and has expressed its support for
the coup in Honduras.

Nestle

Across the globe Nestlé, the world’s largest
food company, has hampered workers’ efforts
to act collectively even as they claim to support
their workers’ right to organize, according to
the International Union of Food, Agricultural,
Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied
Workers (IUF). Workers who have challenged the
management’s hypocrisy have faced harassment, wage
deductions and suspension. While Nestlé claims
to promise “good food, good life,” the company’s
actions around the world have resulted in serious
human rights abuses.

Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, is determined to stop the union representing workers at its Indonesian Nescafé factory from negotiating a collective agreement which includes wages. Nestlé has claimed that wages are a “commercial secret”, harassed union members and leaders, and created a fake union to weaken the IUF’s SBNIP. Indonesian Nescafé workers have been demanding and defending their collective bargaining rights for over 2.5 years. While claiming to cooperate with the home country government of Switzerland to resolve the conflict, Nestlé is acting to eliminate a union which is challenging autocracy at the workplace. The Panjang workers urgently need your support – use the form below to send a message to Nestlé: stop Nespressure and respect trade union rights!

via Stop Nespressure, Discrimination and Union-busting at Nestlé Indonesia!.

Don’t forget about their bottled water empire and what that is doing to local communities and the environment. Don’t forget to drink tap water and think outside of the bottle!

Restaurants are shunning bottled water for tap water. How long before we see this trend spread?

The Italian restaurant backed by celebrities Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich is one of several shunning bottled water, along with the city of San Francisco and New York state.

"The argument for local water is compelling and obvious," said Bastianich, who is phasing out bottled water across his restaurant empire, which stretches to Los Angeles.

"It's about transportation, packaging, the absurdity of moving water all over the world," he said.

Posted via email from Jason’s posterous

They can’t kill salmonella and other pathogens before the food is boxed up and sent to their retail locations.

Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processed foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients. In this case, ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. Other companies do not even know who is supplying their ingredients, let alone if those suppliers are screening the items for microbes and other potential dangers, interviews and documents show.

This is going to become a serious problem in a globalized economy where even food production is done outside of the United States and corporations aren’t able to track the ingredients and etc.

Yet the supply chain for ingredients in processed foods — from flavorings to flour to fruits and vegetables — is becoming more complex and global as the drive to keep food costs down intensifies. As a result, almost every element, not just red meat and poultry, is now a potential carrier of pathogens, government and industry officials concede.

I wonder what Teddy Roosevelt who played an important role in the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration would have to say about this turn of events.

Dear Mr. Jeffery,

It’s time to stop fooling with community water supplies.

It’s time Nestlé started heeding community concerns instead of striking backroom deals, running manipulative PR campaigns, and challenging local opposition through costly legal battles.

I’m calling on you to stop threatening local control of water when siting and operating bottled water plants.

I am joining tens of thousands of people and Think Outside the Bottle in this call because of the social and environmental impacts of bottling water. 

Sincerely,

Jason Gooljar

Kim E. Jeffery

Nestlé Waters North America
800 North Brand Blvd
GlendaleCA 91203
US

Phone:(818) 549-6952

Nestlé Waters North America

So now Nestle has found a new tactic in promoting its bottled water empire. They’re saying drop the Coke and Pepsi and help them destroy the planet.

Nestle which does not sell soda — is now seeking to counter “concerns that bottled water is a bad choice for the environment” by raising concerns about the health impact of soda

Unlike PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Nestle does not also sell soda so they can take this route and bash soda. I do agree that people should drink water just not Nestle’s or any bottled water. Drink tap water! Also, Coke and Pepsi are also horrible for many, many reasons.

I just an email from the people over at Food and Water Watch about the electoral victories for regular people concerned about their water at the polls last week.

In the beachside town of Wells, Maine, threatened by the expanding bottling operations of Nestle’s Poland Springs brand, towns folk voted in unprecedented numbers to halt Nestle’s water mining. The community voted for a 180 day moratorium on all water bottling activities allowing residents time to craft a comprehensive ordinance protecting local water resources.

Fighting Poland Springs…what it means to be from Maine. In the bigger picture of fighting bottled water corporations, maybe someone in Maine should follow the TAP’D NY model and create a TAP’D Maine?