In splitting an English muffin the other morning, I noticed the owner of “Thomas” in small font on the package:
“Bimbo Bakeries USA.”
Bimbo Bakeries USA?
Wikipedia informed me that Grupo Bimbo is a Mexican multinational food processing conglomerate that owns not just Thomas, but also Arnold, Oroweat, Sara Lee, and Entenmann’s. Grupo Bimbo is the largest bakery owner in the US.
So…I’ve been eating Grupo Bimbo products for the past three decades and had no idea?
I shouldn’t be surprised—big corporations trade brands and subsidiaries like baseball cards. That’s nothing new. But something about processed food brands being bought and sold that way gives me the willies. I mean, c’mon—it’s food. It’s weird that there’s an orgy of corporate trading that happens on the shelves and cupboards of kitchens across American.
This sounds naive, I know.
It’s not as if I was unaware of the massive food-industrial complex. I’ve read Omnivore’s Dilemma; Michael Pollan has schooled me on the forces determined to get me socking away calories I don’t need.
I’m aware, too, that when I shop every week at King Soopers—our “local” supermarket—I’m funneling money to Kroger, the country’s largest supermarket company.
Why should I be surprised that the same dynamic is playing out on the shelves of King Soopers? Brands and foods that have a whiff of independence or even “local” flavor—these are owned by the same dozen or so giant corporations.
Mondelez, ConAgra, Kroger, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Keurig Dr. Pepper.
These are are all massive multinational companies that have billions of dollars in annual revenue. Pick any one, look it up on Wikipedia, and marvel at the shocking number of brands it owns.
I opened up my pantry, curious to see which multinationals are lurking around.
- Rice-A-Roni is a PepsiCo product.
- Pam food spray is a ConAgra product.
- Bonne Maman jam is an Andros product. (There are plenty of foreign companies on shelves, too; Andros is a French food processing company with over €2 billion in annual revenue.)
That trio represents just a first pass. If I kept going, I’m sure the list of subsidiary owners would not look a whole lot different from the list of Fortune 500 companies above.
They don’t make it easy to know what we’re eating, do they?
Taylor Coe 