From farm to fork, few things matter more than the food we eat. We all want the freedom and opportunity to choose what ends up on our plate, but when a handful of companies control most of the brands you see at the grocery store, what choices are really left?
On this edition Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, author of Foodopoly, and one of the nation’s leading healthy food advocates, says it’s time to turn the tables on big agribusiness.
The top companies controlled an average of 62.8% of the sales of 100 types of groceries. In 30 categories, four or fewer companies controlled at least 75% of the sales. In six categories, the top companies sold more than 90% of the category sales, including baby formula and microwave dinners.
The charts below from foodopoly.org detail which companies control the food you eat.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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