Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Food and beverage lobbying

Pizza
Food Diary (December 13, 2011)
Breakfast: Sourdough toast with boiled egg
Lunch: Pizza
Dinner: Lentil and vegetable stew
Baking/sweets: Lemon semolina cookies etc


Today's Favourite Photo
Source: Bite my Cake
Fruitcake

Today’s Favourite Blog
An interesting article on how much food and beverage companies spend on lobbying. So far in 2011 a total of US$21 million has been spent, down from over US$40 million last year and about US$60 million the previous year.

Leading the score board with a total expenditure of US$4.8 million is Coca Cola, followed by Pepsi at US$2.6 million. Other names in the top 10 include Mars Inc (US$1.7 million), McDonalds (US$1.1 million) and YUM Brands (US$0.8 million). Starbucks just missed out of the top 10 list, coming in at number 11 with a measly US$0.5 million! Other less generous companies include Hershey (US$0.4 million), Nestle (US$0.2 million) and Wendys (US$0.04 million). 

Coca Cola’s lobbying efforts focused on international corporate tax reform, water policies, military catering, SNAP and various free trade and foreign investment agreements. Pepsi focused on patent reform, childhood obesity, soda taxes, front-of-package nutritional labeling and advertising to children and teens. It is interesting to note that the lobbying efforts of these companies differ so much. 

I guess the amounts spent on lobbying is minuscule compared with revenues. The article did not say where the money ended up. I suppose its best not to ask such kinds of questions because we may never find out the answers. 

Recent Recipes

Popular Recipes
Afghan Cookies (Biscuits)

11 comments:

  1. Hi three cookies, oh my, your pizza and Christmas décor cakes looks so attractive and very appetizing..
    Pretty great food that fits the high table.
    its great to know that giant companies focus another way to advertise like engaging in ocial obligation such as coke and pepsi.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your pizza that you had for lunch looks delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mmmmm, pizzaaaaa ...
    Think I'll hold off on my comments on that article in case I get arrested. Pizza is all I'm interested in right now. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your beautiful pizza with the obviously crunchy crust makes me want to make one tonight (I even happen to have some fresh yeast...). Have you made it on your own? From the scratch??
    The US food lobby is scary (have you seen the Food Inc. documentary?). As much as I love pizza I remember (was it on you blog?) reading about the recent US classification pizza as a vegetable. It wouldn't be so scary if it wasn't about school cafeterias.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You know what would be great? If instead of spending the money on lobbying, these corporations actually put the money towards aiding some of these causes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. just the term food and beverage lobbying makes me laugh! Seriously, lets put our money to better use shall we? I love the look of that pizza-

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh that is a gorgeous cake. Funny how it is only fast food companies that lobby!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Amanda: one way to fix it is to have a pizza:)

    Wan: thank you. Giant companies always find innovative ways to reach their goals!

    Yummychunklet: thank you

    ping: also hold off your identify:) Whatever you have in mind, it is conceivable that many of us have similar thoughts/comments:) Great minds think alike, remember!

    Lorraine: it is, and creative too

    Sissi: yes the pizza is made from scratch. Talking about it makes me want to have some now:)
    I saw the Food Inc documentary, interesting and eye opening. I read about pizza = vegetable classification also but didn’t mention on my blog.

    Joanne: that would be too logical and practical, so it won’t work:) That would mean less money for other ‘causes’ relating to lobbying activities:)

    Kitchen Belleicious: exactly. Lobbysts are like investment bankers:)

    Cheap Ethnic Eatz: I didn’t notice that, very interesting. Apart from being larger and having greater paying capacity, there is also the issue of food quality:)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Awesome pizza..Looking so delicious.Ummmmmm

    ReplyDelete