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A fairly rushed conclusion... "Making these changes will require a complete reorganization of these companies' fundamental business models and global supply cha

A fairly rushed conclusion... "Making these changes will require a complete reorganization of these companies' fundamental business models and global supply chains, but, ummm, hey, they have the money! Right? The end." If only it were that simple. The government subsidizes corn and soybeans, which is why they're everywhere and in everything. Derivatives from corn and soybeans account for a staggering proportion of the ingredients, 'natural' and 'artificial,' that appear in the staple products offered by most of our biggest food companies. They're also the feed that raises all of our meat. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest that corn and soybeans are the nation's food supply. They are pretty much the only crops we can grow cheaply at massive mega-scale, and we derive almost all our nutritionally questionable foods from them. Transforming businesses the scale of McDonald's and General Mills will require nothing short of a complete overhaul of our current agricultural economic policy. Best of luck with that... For a more insightful article with a deeper look into the issue, I recommend the recent piece about McDonald's in the New Yorker.

lotharbot 11y ago
The article made a sudden shift away from "how consumer behavior has changed" and toward "this is what big companies must do", and I don't think it handled that shift very well. Should companies abandon frozen food research? There's not really a compelling argument in this piece for why. There are still large parts of the consumer market that rely on frozen and canned foods because they don't lose as much to spoilage. Research into how to mix "frozen" with "... but still pretty healthy" could actually be a huge step forward for some of these big companies. Because it's not just agricultural and economic policy, it's also consumer lifestyles that aren't necessarily compatible with a "buy everything fresh 3x per week" approach. Some people have trouble getting to the store that often. Some rely on lunch foods that can be prepared in 3 minutes with the microwave at work. Some rely on foods that can go for a long time without spoiling. While a lot of consumers have shifted away from prepared foods, there are still a lot who have reasons not to yet.
- tptacek 11y ago
  What's annoying about this is that the anchor point the article uses to draw the conclusion that big brands have to change their strategy is the market shift towards "perimeter" foods --- produce, deli, dairy, bakery, prepared food --- and the suggestion that this meant consumers were buying more produce and fewer frozen meals. In fact, a giant part of Whole Foods strategy is to get customers to treat them like a high-class version of Boston Market --- which is to say like a counter service family style restaurant. That has less to do with what ingredients customers shop for, and more to do with the fact that people aren't preparing meals at home at all. Later Also: click through to the report they're citing, and then mentally walk a grocery store and ask yourself what isn't a "perimeter" product? Flour, bottled tomato sauce, chips, dry pasta, canned beans, frozen dinners --- but pretty much every home-cooked meal will depend somehow on the produce section, dairy, the deli, or the meat counter.
  - jkarneges 11y ago
    > That has less to do with what ingredients customers shop for, and more to do with the fact that people aren't preparing meals at home at all. I'd say it's a bit of both. It's nice to know that the prepared food at WFM adheres to the same guidelines as the rest of the store (e.g. no HFCS, no trans fat, humane meats, etc). It's pretty hard to find a restaurant anywhere with such standards.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I'm a lot less sure. Whole Foods sells and uses factory protein. They have to: they're one of the largest grocers in the country. I'm an investor in a very well-known Chicago local butcher, and they have trouble meeting demand --- and they're a store you have to go out of your way to drive to to get local food. I'm somewhat skeptical of Whole Foods meat. I buy it without worrying, and I do actively avoid Tyson and Smithfield and whatnot, but I'm probably not avoiding antibiotics or animal cruelty by doing so. (WFM discloses this to customers with their 1-2-3-4-5 scale). General rule of thumb: if you can buy a package of 12 or more chicken thighs, and there's another of the same package of 12 or more chicken thighs sitting right behind the one you bought, you're buying factory chicken. Most restaurants are eliminating trans fats. I think HFCS is a cosmetic issue. Sugar is sugar, and it's all bad for you. But then: if you make potato salad at home, is it likely to be more healthful than what you get at WFM? The opposite is, I think, true: WFM's is tailored for palatability, and yours is tailored for ease of preparation, because you only have one family to feed, and WFM can amortize palatability over hundreds of families. Palatability means sugar and fat.
acjohnson55 11y ago
Presumably, you're talking about this article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/freedom-from-fries http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/freedom-from-fr...
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  Yes, thank you for the link. :)
Kluny 11y ago
If they can be grown at such a massive scale, why do they need to be subsidized? Wouldn't they get grown anyway? Why not subsidize broccoli and quinoa instead? (Yes I know the question is naive but I still hope for a smart answer.)
- ams6110 11y ago
  Soybeans and corn have many uses and produce many sub-products (oils, tofu, corn starch, corn meal, animal feed, even as raw material for plastics, bio-fuels, etc.) Broccoli is pretty much just something people might eat a few ounces of a couple times a week.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  They can be grown at scale because they are subsidized. Other products suffer at scale because farmers' economic incentives are heavily skewed towards growing the subsidized crops. They carry high opportunity costs. Apologies; I should have made the direction of causality clearer in my original comment.
  - Kluny 11y ago
    Thanks for clarifying.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Is it the case that farmers grow soybeans instead of broccoli because they're subsidized, or is it rather that broccoli is more seasonal, more specialized, harder to grow, and especially difficult logistically, with a value chain that includes more middlemen that suck out more of the value? How many different broccoli farmers or farmer-co-ops are there that have nationwide distribution? Because you can grow soybeans, supply several different industries in doing so, and the commodities markets are more or less set up to directly manage your risks. That's not a public policy priorities issue, it's a "soybeans are a more fundamental output of the agriculture industry than broccoli is" issue.
- tim333 11y ago
  I think cause and effect may go the other way - being grown at scale allows them to lobby/buy politicians hence subsidies.
chipsy 11y ago
I would venture to guess that subsidies also drive our obsession with adding dairy products to everything.
Retric 11y ago
The US simply produces mind boggling amounts of food. The United States produces almost 40 pound of wheat per person in the US (58 million tons) 50% of that get exported. Also, 40 percent of US corn ends up as ethanol. Anyway, subsidies often relate to how automated the process is. Combines are wonderful things, but there also expensive.
bootload 11y ago
"They're also the feed that raises all of our meat. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest that corn and soybeans are the nation's food supply. They are pretty much the only crops we can grow cheaply at massive mega-scale," Wheat?

lotharbot 11y ago

The article made a sudden shift away from "how consumer behavior has changed" and toward "this is what big companies must do", and I don't think it handled that shift very well. Should companies abandon frozen food research? There's not really a compelling argument in this piece for why. There are still large parts of the consumer market that rely on frozen and canned foods because they don't lose as much to spoilage. Research into how to mix "frozen" with "... but still pretty healthy" could actually be a huge step forward for some of these big companies. Because it's not just agricultural and economic policy, it's also consumer lifestyles that aren't necessarily compatible with a "buy everything fresh 3x per week" approach. Some people have trouble getting to the store that often. Some rely on lunch foods that can be prepared in 3 minutes with the microwave at work. Some rely on foods that can go for a long time without spoiling. While a lot of consumers have shifted away from prepared foods, there are still a lot who have reasons not to yet.

tptacek 11y ago
What's annoying about this is that the anchor point the article uses to draw the conclusion that big brands have to change their strategy is the market shift towards "perimeter" foods --- produce, deli, dairy, bakery, prepared food --- and the suggestion that this meant consumers were buying more produce and fewer frozen meals. In fact, a giant part of Whole Foods strategy is to get customers to treat them like a high-class version of Boston Market --- which is to say like a counter service family style restaurant. That has less to do with what ingredients customers shop for, and more to do with the fact that people aren't preparing meals at home at all. Later Also: click through to the report they're citing, and then mentally walk a grocery store and ask yourself what isn't a "perimeter" product? Flour, bottled tomato sauce, chips, dry pasta, canned beans, frozen dinners --- but pretty much every home-cooked meal will depend somehow on the produce section, dairy, the deli, or the meat counter.
- jkarneges 11y ago
  > That has less to do with what ingredients customers shop for, and more to do with the fact that people aren't preparing meals at home at all. I'd say it's a bit of both. It's nice to know that the prepared food at WFM adheres to the same guidelines as the rest of the store (e.g. no HFCS, no trans fat, humane meats, etc). It's pretty hard to find a restaurant anywhere with such standards.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I'm a lot less sure. Whole Foods sells and uses factory protein. They have to: they're one of the largest grocers in the country. I'm an investor in a very well-known Chicago local butcher, and they have trouble meeting demand --- and they're a store you have to go out of your way to drive to to get local food. I'm somewhat skeptical of Whole Foods meat. I buy it without worrying, and I do actively avoid Tyson and Smithfield and whatnot, but I'm probably not avoiding antibiotics or animal cruelty by doing so. (WFM discloses this to customers with their 1-2-3-4-5 scale). General rule of thumb: if you can buy a package of 12 or more chicken thighs, and there's another of the same package of 12 or more chicken thighs sitting right behind the one you bought, you're buying factory chicken. Most restaurants are eliminating trans fats. I think HFCS is a cosmetic issue. Sugar is sugar, and it's all bad for you. But then: if you make potato salad at home, is it likely to be more healthful than what you get at WFM? The opposite is, I think, true: WFM's is tailored for palatability, and yours is tailored for ease of preparation, because you only have one family to feed, and WFM can amortize palatability over hundreds of families. Palatability means sugar and fat.

acjohnson55 11y ago

Presumably, you're talking about this article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/freedom-from-fries http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/freedom-from-fr...

jonnathanson 11y ago
Yes, thank you for the link. :)

Kluny 11y ago

If they can be grown at such a massive scale, why do they need to be subsidized? Wouldn't they get grown anyway? Why not subsidize broccoli and quinoa instead? (Yes I know the question is naive but I still hope for a smart answer.)

ams6110 11y ago
Soybeans and corn have many uses and produce many sub-products (oils, tofu, corn starch, corn meal, animal feed, even as raw material for plastics, bio-fuels, etc.) Broccoli is pretty much just something people might eat a few ounces of a couple times a week.
jonnathanson 11y ago
They can be grown at scale because they are subsidized. Other products suffer at scale because farmers' economic incentives are heavily skewed towards growing the subsidized crops. They carry high opportunity costs. Apologies; I should have made the direction of causality clearer in my original comment.
- Kluny 11y ago
  Thanks for clarifying.
tptacek 11y ago
Is it the case that farmers grow soybeans instead of broccoli because they're subsidized, or is it rather that broccoli is more seasonal, more specialized, harder to grow, and especially difficult logistically, with a value chain that includes more middlemen that suck out more of the value? How many different broccoli farmers or farmer-co-ops are there that have nationwide distribution? Because you can grow soybeans, supply several different industries in doing so, and the commodities markets are more or less set up to directly manage your risks. That's not a public policy priorities issue, it's a "soybeans are a more fundamental output of the agriculture industry than broccoli is" issue.
tim333 11y ago
I think cause and effect may go the other way - being grown at scale allows them to lobby/buy politicians hence subsidies.

chipsy 11y ago

I would venture to guess that subsidies also drive our obsession with adding dairy products to everything.

Retric 11y ago

The US simply produces mind boggling amounts of food. The United States produces almost 40 pound of wheat per person in the US (58 million tons) 50% of that get exported. Also, 40 percent of US corn ends up as ethanol. Anyway, subsidies often relate to how automated the process is. Combines are wonderful things, but there also expensive.

bootload 11y ago

"They're also the feed that raises all of our meat. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest that corn and soybeans are the nation's food supply. They are pretty much the only crops we can grow cheaply at massive mega-scale," Wheat?