The Impact of Transnational “Big Food” Companies on the South: A View from Brazil

Throughout human history, traditional food systems and dietary patterns have been intrinsic to social, cultural, and economic life, and to personal, community, and national identity. Although these long-established dietary patterns are rarely if ever nutritionally ideal, they are linked with low rates of obesity and chronic diseases, and can be readily improved by modifications that respect tradition and culture, and national and local resources. However, the policies and practices of transnational food and drink corporations (see Box 1), most of whose products are ultra-processed and whose headquarters are almost invariably in the US and Europe, are now steadily displacing traditional food systems around the world. This process of displacement is not merely commercial, it is also ideological. Economic globalization, systematic privatization, and minimally regulated international capital flow have all shifted the balance between governments and corporations. Governments and international institutions now tend to cede their prime duty to protect the public interest to vast transnational corporations whose primary responsibility is to their shareholders. The prevailing political, economic, and commercial policies and practices have also given these corporations freedom to expand across borders [1]. Consequently, the leading food and drink product corporations are now colossal concerns. Their brands sell throughout the world in outlets that range from large supermarkets to filling stations, and from restaurants to kiosks. The individual annual revenue of the largest corporations is as high as the annual gross domestic product (GDP) of middle-size countries [2–8] and, unlike many national governments, these corporations are able to plan strategically and to divert or invest billions in new technologies and markets. Big Food corporations now claim that they work in the public as well as the private interest, and even that they are in the business of protecting public health. For example, according to executives working for PepsiCo, food and drink transnationals penetrating ‘‘emerging markets’’ can at the same time support lowand middle-income countries, helping them to eliminate hunger and undernutrition and to prevent and control obesity and non-communicable diseases