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This chapter investigates industrial restructuring in the slow‐growing food industry in the USA, asking why an industry with a growth factor of less than 1% flourishes in a world in which companies strive for growth rates of 10% or more. It first looks at the industrial composition (sectoral distribution) of the Fortune 500 [the largest 500 companies in the US as listed by Fortune Magazine, on the basis of publicly available data], and at the industrial restructuring that occurred in the 1980s in the US economy, showing a breakdown of consumer products into cyclical and noncyclical groups. The food industry is in the noncyclical group, which increased its share of revenues while decreasing its share of companies in the Fortune 500. Other sections of the chapter look at the following: consolidation through mergers and acquisitions; financial innovations – the ability to use public markets for leveraged financing and a possibly more heavy reliance (of noncyclical companies) on high‐yield bond financing (for which evidence is presented); the financing of biotechnology for food production and the associated structural change in production; the impact of the combination of high‐yield financing and high tech in the food industry; and foreign and international influences.

This chapter focuses on three key issues: firstly, the necessity of a shared vision; secondly, whether or not to trust the food industry; and thirdly, what should be done next. In order to move forward, a shared vision is needed of the causes of obesity and a philosophy of prevention. The strategy of trying to increase personal responsibility has not worked. Instead, the focus must be shifted to changing the environment so that it facilitates healthy eating behaviours and physical activity. The next question to be asked is: can the food instustry be trusted? In watching the behaviour of the food industry in recent years, their strategies have become apparent. The chapter describes elements of the food industry ‘playbook’ and questions the influence of the industry on the government. Finally, it recommends a number of targeted actions. Among these are making policy changes to protect children from commercialism, and creating coalitions with groups concerned about the environment and sustainability. Finally, the chapter also describes a more productive role for the food industry, and ends with example innovations that have succeeded at the local level.

Part I of this chapter describes some of the activities that some food and beverage corporations routinely engage in as part of their ‘health and wellness’ strategies. Specific changes in food industry policies can favourably impact dietary practices and nutritional status, and therefore contribute to reductions in the risk of cardiovascular disease and chronic disease in both the medium and long term. These changes focus on product reformulation and the promotion of physical activity and healthy lifestyles. A case study of PepsiCo's 2010 goals and commitments is presented. Part II evaluates the food industry's tactics and potentially adverse effects on public health. Lessons from the tobacco and other industries are applied to the food industry, using material drawn from PepsiCo's proposals. The analysis suggests that food companies may be replicating several of the tactics used by tobacco companies to promote a positive image and influence research as part of an effort to reduce the prospects for public regulation and taxation.

It is well known that obesity affects populations in both developed and developing countries, with significant consequences for public health. What is less understood is the role of the food and beverage industry in reducing the prevalence of obesity and its long-term consequences on individuals and, potentially, society. This chapter addresses the industry's role in obesity prevention by citing examples of industry-led initiatives offering early indicators that the industry can contribute to the effort of global obesity prevention.

This chapter considers, on a practical level, the extent to which substantive public interest values are present and identified in current regulatory activity, and how regulatory procedures serve, or fail to serve, these values. It discusses the constitutional and legal background and ‘social regulation’ of the utility industries in the United Kingdom. The perceived constitutional impropriety of the British judiciary reviewing the substance of primary legislation seems to have led to a broader position, whereby the judiciary will seek at almost any cost to confine its decisions to the procedure of administrative decision-making rather than risking giving the slightest appearance of reviewing the substance of decisions. This chapter discusses the constitutional law and administrative law in the UK, as well as regulation in pursuit of social objectives associated with the public interest, the role of citizenship in the liberal-democratic social enterprise, food industries and food safety, the Food Standards Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, the precautionary principle, regulation of mass media in the public interest, Public Service Broadcasting, and commercial freedom and democratic values.

This chapter examines the layered worlds of the Italian food business and consumer marketplace in East Harlem. In order to understand the central role of food in the making of Italian American identity, it is necessary to look at how Italian American food entrepreneurs in New York sought to link food with ethnic identity. This chapter first discusses the history of American-made Italian food and food consumption among Italian migrants between 1890 and 1920, along with the development of the U.S. food industry at the turn of the twentieth century. It then looks at the emergence of a new generation of consumers and food businesses during the period 1920–1940. It also considers the marketing strategies of Italian food producers and the response of Italian American consumers in the interwar years in relation to ethnicity and modernity. It shows that the centrality of food created an entrepreneurial ethnic middle class based in the food trade, which nurtured—and in turn supported by—the symbolic connection between the consumption of Italian food and the construction of diasporic Italian identities.

The production and sale of unsafe food, which typifies the concept of cheap capitalism, has become a global concern due to the increasing integration and interdependence of contemporary societies. Using secondary data sources, including the media, regulatory bodies, interest groups, and scholarly literature, this chapter explores unsafe food within the conceptual framework of cheap capitalism. By examining the nature and scale of unsafe food, it first argues that cheap capitalism is rampant, posing a greater risk to public health locally and internationally. Second, it argues that the state, the industry, and the processes of globalisation typically constitute the dominant factors shaping and driving cheap capitalism in the food sector. Third, it argues that unsafe food in the Canadian context can properly be understood within the global context of cheap capitalism. Finally, it explores steps being taken to address cheap capitalism in the food industry.

This chapter applies the strategic value framework to case studies of nonstrategic industries (consumer electronics, foodstuffs, and paper) to show that decentralized engagement is the dominant regulatory pattern in low-tech, labor-intensive industries. Consumer electronics ranks the highest in strategic value among the nonstrategic sectors surveyed. Despite its low strategic value for national security applications and medium rank in contribution to the national technology base, the most high-tech subsectors, including microelectronics, produce inputs and have applications for strategic industries, including telecommunications and transportation. The state adopted a more deliberate orientation toward the development of indigenous technologies and domestic industry in these subsectors. The state has extensively liberalized market entry and business scope in foodstuffs. It has also taken an incidental orientation toward paper since paper production has miniscule applications for national security and makes a small contribution to China's national technology base.

This chapter examines the lack of healthy foods among people of color in low-income urban communities and its relation to the problem of obesity. It is not possible to view obesity from a socioecological perspective without an in-depth discussion of the instrumental role that the food industry has played, and continues to play, in this crisis. The chapter first considers the food industry as a source of food and employment before exploring how fast-food restaurants and convenience stores contribute to the problem of overweight and obesity. It also looks at the impact of “big box” stores such as Wal-Mart, the role of schools and government, and issues of food security and food justice.

Where is knowledge embedded in organizations? The chapter describes results on the persistence and transfer of knowledge in fast food franchises, and presents the results on the productivity of the franchises and on the timeliness of their service. It is shown that the qualitative evidence about where knowledge was embedded in the franchises suggests that knowledge gained from experience at the franchises was embedded in individual workers and in the organizations’ routines, structures, and technologies. It is argued that the fast food franchises were able to realize significant productivity gains in the face of extraordinarily high turnover because a significant component of the knowledge was embedded in the organization's structure and technology rather than in individual employees. Further, embedding knowledge in structure and technology appeared to facilitate the transfer of knowledge across organizations.

This chapter examines how the food industry's advertising and marketing campaigns contribute to the problem of obesity. The power of advertising and marketing in creating consumer demand for products cannot be overestimated, and low-income people of color in urban communities have been particularly targeted in this regard. One of the greatest challenges is figuring out how food companies seek to subvert efforts at controlling unhealthy food practices. The tobacco industry, for example, has employed a variety of methods for marketing its products to marginalized communities. This chapter considers the tactics used by the food industry to market unhealthy foods to consumers, such as exploiting the power and influence of social media to target children.

Chapter 5 addresses how sustainable emergency food initiatives are, in relation to the sustainability of both the availability of food to emergency food providers and the accessibility of that food to potential recipients. This chapter first of all explores the agency of emergency food providers to make food available and finds that they are constrained in significant ways by the structure of the food industry. The agency of potential emergency food recipients is also highly constrained, both in terms of accessing the projects and once within them. The sustainability of emergency food provision in terms of the availability of food through these systems and access to that food by people in need therefore appears to be particularly vulnerable. Emergency food providers and their recipients are constrained by the structures in which they operate (the food system and emergency food systems) and their ability to access the amount of food they require is ultimately determined by these structures.

This book explores the problem of urban obesity among people of color from individual, family, group, community, and policy perspectives. It charts the history of urban obesity in communities of color and describes various anti-obesity policies and programs, along with the role of social work in addressing this epidemic. The book, premised on a social justice paradigm, examines the social, ecological, environmental, and spatial factors that contribute to urban obesity, such as the food industry's advertising strategies, which promote unhealthy choices; the failure of local markets to provide good food options; the lack of safe spaces for physical exercise; and the paucity of health education. It also considers the connection between food stamps and obesity, as well as the financial and social consequences of this complicated health issue for society as a whole. The book concludes by offering recommendations for effective health promotion programs with the support of the social work profession.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs), multistakeholder initiatives (MSIs), and other close relationships with industry actors have become the paradigm in public health. Nowhere is this more evident than in the food and beverage sector. Public officials tend to downplay the ethical perils of these arrangements, and sometimes they fail to recognize them at all. The chapter explores the terminology and taxonomies of public-private partnerships and the justifications offered for these kinds of interactions. It outlines the main concerns and theoretical contributions of the book and provides a summary of the chapters to assist policymakers and other readers who wish to be more selective in their reading of the text. This book is intended to help public health officials (among others) develop comprehensive strategies to counter industry influence and pilot alternatives to PPPs.

This chapter describes the impact of social injustice on oral health. It defines oral health and describes the oral disease epidemic. A box in the chapter describes social inequalities in oral health internationally. The chapter discusses national priorities, local and state priorities, school programs, dental public health infrastructure, the dental workforce, and practices of the food and tobacco industries. It describes what needs to be done to improve oral health and reduce the impact of social injustice on oral health.

This chapter uses social network analysis to explore the web of influence of the four ‘addictive’ industries examined in the book: alcohol, tobacco, food, and gambling. The data are used to paint an overall picture before taking a closer look in subsequent chapters. The four industries form more or less separated clusters, and whereas the alcohol and food industries are very well interconnected, the gambling and tobacco industries are only loosely tied to the others. The network also shows that advertising and marketing sectors and think tanks often act as connecting hubs between the industries. The closer look at the clusters of the four industries shows some important differences. The food cluster is more heterogeneous than the others are; the alcohol cluster contains product-related subclusters; and gambling, as well as tobacco, is smaller and less dense compared with the other two.

The federal and fiercely republican context in which regulation of private activity takes place in the United States has led to a very different administrative tradition from that of the United Kingdom. This chapter examines how concepts of public interest have developed in, and have informed, the American regulatory system. The focus is on the key regulators of broadcasting and of the food supply industry: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA operates within the web of constitutional and administrative law which establishes the limits on the duties and powers of government agencies. Disputes arising out of the activities of regulators such as the FDA or FCC essentially raise questions regarding the legality of agency action, yet underlying these ‘technical’ issues are much larger questions relating to the legitimacy of such actions within the polity.

Food plays a central role in all our lives. An increased awareness of what we eat, where it comes from, and how it is transformed is critical in fostering a healthy and culturally rich society. This chapter urges consumers to enrich their culinary perspective by learning more about the science of food and cooking. It argues that good science as an essential part of the solution to the problems associated with the modern food system, like improving the ways nutrition-related claims are reviewed, boosting food quality, addressing the sustainability issue, and reducing the heavy reliance on fossil fuels and water in food manufacturing. Improvements to the food system require that consumers demand higher-quality foods (and a willingness to invest in their health, through food), governments establish appropriate guidelines and regulations, and society fosters a culture of food (through radical changes in school-lunch programs, for example)—and that the food industry responds to meet these demands by using science wisely.