General Mills: Difference between revisions
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== Flour Milling == | == Flour Milling == | ||
As of X, 61% of flour milling worldwide was | As of X, 61% of flour milling worldwide was concentrated in the multinational corporate hands of [[Cargill]], [[ADM Milling]], [[ConAgra]], and General Mills.<ref>Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 146</ref> | ||
= Sources = | = Sources = | ||
Revision as of 21:08, 17 November 2022
Corporate PR
Origins
General Mills was an early client of Corporate PR (public relations) industry pioneer Ivy Lee, whose other clientele included American Tobacco, Standard Oil, and the Rockefellers. [1]
Lee's work first attracted national controversy in the Ludlow Massacre, after which he was dispatched by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to cover up what subpoenaed documents revealed to be a deliberate assault by Standard Oil mercenaries, at the direct orders of Rockefeller, to suppress the Ludlow strike via mass murder.[2]
To General Mills, Lee made such enduring contributions as the creation of Betty Crocker and the "Breakfast of Champions" slogan that adorns the Wheaties box. [3]
Spending
As of 2003, the food industry’s global advertising budget was $40 billion, a figure greater than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 70 per cent of the world’s nations. The industry outspends the World Health Organization 500-1 promoting vs. preventing unhealthy diets. [4]
At the time, General Mills was the #7 adspender compared to other US food companies promoting a particular MegaBrand, having spent $265 million to advertise Big G Cereals, a sum only lower than Pepsi-Cola, Burger King, Kraft/Altria, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart and McDonald's (which led the list with $655 million spent). [5]
Sugary Cereal & Public Health
By the 2000s, many industrializing countries such as Russia, China and India began suffering a rising tide of diet-related diseases as multinational food companies increasingly exported their products and their advertising practices.[6]
While obesity has been misclassified as a problem of individual responsibility, not least by the food industry, the rising epidemic of obesity in low-, middle- and rich-income countries is repositioning it as a question of public health and social impact. [7]
By 2002-2003, leading financial, political, scientific, and public health instiutions had clearly recognized the production of sugary food commodities as the greatest dietary contributor to the obesity epidemic.
Financial Risk
A 2002 global equity research published by UBS Warburg reported that the share prices of many of the world's biggest food companies are at risk because of "consumers" exposure to exposure to "unhealthy" foodstuffs,' specifically "risks associated with obesity that have not yet been factored into share prices."
As the Warburg report concluded: "If the [obesity] epidemic is to be tamed, the major purveyors will have to see sales of many of their traditional product lines fall."
In April 2003, a JP Morgan Chase equity research report explored this risk further, drawing up a list of the product portfolios of the companies most exposed to the 'obesity risk' (based on percentage of total revenue).
In JP Morgan's accounting, General Mills was the U.S. food company whose commodities posed the 8th highest obesity risk, due to 1/3 of its foods posing demonstrated health risks and being ranked "not so healthy," ranking only behind Wrigley, Kellogg, Kraft, Pepsi-Cola, Coca-cola, Cadbury, and Hershey. [8]
Childhood Marketing
The International Association of Consumer Food Organizations (IACFO), reported in "Broadcasting Bad Health" (2003) that the health of the children around the world is put at risk by the marketing of junk food. This has been identified as the weak spot for the food industry in relation to its marketing practices, and since 2003 the World Health Organization has urged governments to consider restricted TV ads for 'sugar-rich items' to children. In many industrialized countries, food advertising accounts for around half of all advertising broadcast during children’s TV viewing times. [9]
Kath Dalmeny, co-author of the report, disclosed that "Junk food advertisers know that children are especially susceptible to marketing messages. They target children as young as two years old with free toys, cartoon characters, gimmicky packaging and interactive websites to ensure that children pester their parents for the products."[10]
Spin & Denial
On the heels of this growing financial and legal pressure in 2003 and the U.S. dietary guideline and food pyramid update in 2005, General Mills announced the launch of reformulated "whole grain" versions of its cereals.
Cereal boxes were plastered with huge "whole grain" banners as well as the revamped food pyramid, called MyPyramid. Everything from Reese's Puffs to Cookie Crisps, Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms were labeled as "whole grain," despite other ingredients such as canola oil, corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin, artificial flavors and various dyes. To explain away the contradiction, General Mills denied that the high sugar content in their cereal mattered and claimed there was no healthier breakfast a child could eat: "Even with presweetened cereals, there really is no better breakfast your child eat in the morning."[11][12]
To promote its denial, General Mills launched a television campaign dubbed "Choose Breakfast" to portray itself as a champion of children's health. Launched in June 2005, the campaign purports to "communicate the benefits of breakfast to children."[13] General Mills tried to give the campaign "public service" respectability by claiming the campaign is "non-branded," but the ten-second spots are paired with twenty-second commercials for the company's cereals, including Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, and Trix. The Trix rabbit and Lucky Charms leprechaun also appear in ads touting the benefits of physical activity, misdirecting from the sugar found in their cereal bowls.[14][15]
Advertising as Fake News
In March 2006, a video news release (VNR) produced for General Mills / Bisquick by the PR firm Medialink Worldwide aired on at least four television stations, disguised as "news." The stations who aired the VNR were KYTX-19 in Tyler, Texas; WBOC-16 in Salisbury, Maryland; WFXW-38 in Terre Haute, Indiana; and WILX-10 in Lansing, Michigan.
The VNR featured new ideas for pancake dishes, such as Mexican corncakes, orange toffee pancakes, banana split pancakes, and PB&J shortstacks. The VNR coincided with "National Pancake Week," created in 1985 by General Mills and Bisquick. [16]
Grain Cartel
Two multinational corporations, Cargill and ContiGroup Companies, each account for 25 percent of the grain trade - making half between them. Together, five companies control 75 percent of corn and four have a lock on 80 percent of global soybean processing.[17]
When it comes to the concentration of terminal grain handling and flour milling, General Mills is one of the top four companies which control over half of global operations.
Terminal Grain Handling
As of 2004, 60% of terminal grain handling worldwide was concentrated in the multinational corporate hands of Cargill, Cenex Harvest States, ADM, and General Mills. [18]
Flour Milling
As of X, 61% of flour milling worldwide was concentrated in the multinational corporate hands of Cargill, ADM Milling, ConAgra, and General Mills.[19]
Sources
- ↑ "The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty," Collier & Horowitz, 1939, p. 117
- ↑ "The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty," Collier & Horowitz, 1939, p. 123-124
- ↑ "The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty," Collier & Horowitz, 1939, p. 117
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 206; citing IACFO report: "Broadcasting Bad Health"
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 202
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 205-206
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 203
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 204-5
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 205-206
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 206
- ↑ Marybeth Thorsgaard, General Mills spokesperson, quoted in Michele Simon Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Nation Books, 2006) pg 95
- ↑ The Center for Media and Democracy, "General Mills," https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=General_Mills
- ↑ FindArticles - "General Mills Launches New Children's Advertising Initiative" Business Wire, June 22, 2005
- ↑ Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Nation Books, 2006) pg 120
- ↑ The Center for Media and Democracy, "General Mills," https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=General_Mills
- ↑ https://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/vnr33
- ↑ The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability, Lierre Kieth, 2009, p. 114
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 145
- ↑ Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets, Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, p. 146