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2021 article from the Guardian: “ A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly b

2021 article from the Guardian: “ A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans, new analysis reveals.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/...

throwawaysleep 2y ago
Nowhere in the world spends a lower percentage of income on food than the USA. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-expenditure-share-gdp?country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-expenditure-share-gd... So I would argue that other countries, if they want to tame inflation, should allow their smaller inefficient producers to get squeezed.
- seventyone 2y ago
  This is true but people will react negatively to this data regardless. The US does have this advantage, but you can also argue that the tradeoff is our food quality is much worse than other western countries.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  That graph is misleading at best, especially for the US. If total consumer spending in the US is 50k and in Italy 20k, then it seems rather obvious to me that Americans are gonna spend a smaller fraction of that on food... If you run the numbers, those two countries spend, in fact, almost the same dollar amount on food (3.2k vs 3.5k).
- jjk166 2y ago
  Or the wealthier a nation is, the less political will exists to go after monopolies.
- Clent 2y ago
  This doesn't mean our food is cheaper. It could mean that we have other budget items that are larger than in other countries, such as healthcare costs. We almost spent more on childcare costs than countries further to the right in that graph.
nox101 2y ago
Makes me wonder why the governments only seem to care about tech power ... is there movement to break up these companies?
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  If you look at that linked guardian article (which I think is a great article BTW), it would seem that what is considered "highly consolidated" in the grocery world is still generally less consolidated than the tech world. E.g. if you look at the soft drink data, it's ~ 42% Coca-Cola, 27% PepsiCo, and 23% Keurig Dr Pepper, so then about 7% "other". That actually seems like a well-functioning market with competition to me (though I'm sure there could be regional areas where this is widely skewed). Still, I do agree with you that there are some areas where a single company controls the vast majority of the market, and furthermore it got there by buying up a lot of brands, and this looks like there would be some pretty straightforward antitrust cases here. E.g. Grupo Bimbo alone controls nearly 2/3 of the bagel market, Danone controls nearly 80% of the refrigerated soy milk market, PepsiCo controls 87.5% of the dip market. Furthermore, I think the article does a great job exposing "the illusion of choice", i.e. in dips PepsiCo owns Tostitos, Lays, Fritos, and Doritos brands.
deleted 2y ago
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theGnuMe 2y ago
Correct, the white label off brands are all the same products regardless of store.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Sometimes the same white label off product is different across the same chain. E.g. in Canada, Costco toilet paper was produced/supplied by a different company between east and west coast.

throwawaysleep 2y ago

Nowhere in the world spends a lower percentage of income on food than the USA. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-expenditure-share-gdp?country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-expenditure-share-gd... So I would argue that other countries, if they want to tame inflation, should allow their smaller inefficient producers to get squeezed.

seventyone 2y ago
This is true but people will react negatively to this data regardless. The US does have this advantage, but you can also argue that the tradeoff is our food quality is much worse than other western countries.
myrmidon 2y ago
That graph is misleading at best, especially for the US. If total consumer spending in the US is 50k and in Italy 20k, then it seems rather obvious to me that Americans are gonna spend a smaller fraction of that on food... If you run the numbers, those two countries spend, in fact, almost the same dollar amount on food (3.2k vs 3.5k).
jjk166 2y ago
Or the wealthier a nation is, the less political will exists to go after monopolies.
Clent 2y ago
This doesn't mean our food is cheaper. It could mean that we have other budget items that are larger than in other countries, such as healthcare costs. We almost spent more on childcare costs than countries further to the right in that graph.

nox101 2y ago

Makes me wonder why the governments only seem to care about tech power ... is there movement to break up these companies?

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
If you look at that linked guardian article (which I think is a great article BTW), it would seem that what is considered "highly consolidated" in the grocery world is still generally less consolidated than the tech world. E.g. if you look at the soft drink data, it's ~ 42% Coca-Cola, 27% PepsiCo, and 23% Keurig Dr Pepper, so then about 7% "other". That actually seems like a well-functioning market with competition to me (though I'm sure there could be regional areas where this is widely skewed). Still, I do agree with you that there are some areas where a single company controls the vast majority of the market, and furthermore it got there by buying up a lot of brands, and this looks like there would be some pretty straightforward antitrust cases here. E.g. Grupo Bimbo alone controls nearly 2/3 of the bagel market, Danone controls nearly 80% of the refrigerated soy milk market, PepsiCo controls 87.5% of the dip market. Furthermore, I think the article does a great job exposing "the illusion of choice", i.e. in dips PepsiCo owns Tostitos, Lays, Fritos, and Doritos brands.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

theGnuMe 2y ago

Correct, the white label off brands are all the same products regardless of store.

Scoundreller 2y ago
Sometimes the same white label off product is different across the same chain. E.g. in Canada, Costco toilet paper was produced/supplied by a different company between east and west coast.