The corporate influence on food charity and aid: The “Hunger Industrial Complex” and the death of welfare

Abstract

There is an existing literature on how food companies, including the unhealthy food commodity industries, influence policy through a number of approaches. Direct approaches include lobbying and funding of research. Backdoor or indirect tactics used by food companies to demonstrate engagement include funding community groups, tactics previously used by the tobacco industry. Food industry support for food charities engaged in food donations is an area that has not received attention. This is another backdoor approach and one which may compromise more general public health policy. It is no surprise that the companies that engage in this can be largely fall under the rubric of unhealthy food commodity industries. This link is sometimes referred to as the “hunger industrial complex” and is based on the argument that an alliance exists between the food industry and the food banking movement. With rising levels of food insecurity there is pressure on the food system to donate food to charitable enterprises such as food banks and soups kitchens, which is often encouraged by government policy such as “Good Samaritan legislation”. Food businesses contribute surplus food and often promote it as part of their corporate social responsibility agenda. The argument presented here is not an anti-food charity one but one which challenges the development of charitable food aid as a system and a replacement for public policy. The reasons for this can be summarized under three headings: (1) such donation systems compromise the wider application of public food welfare and give the impression that food poverty is being addressed; (2) the links with food corporations provide a backdoor for influence on wider food policies; and (3) researchers taking money from food charities may be compromised by the direct and indirect relationships with companies. The focus in this paper is on the latter two issues; the first will be established as a context with work we have published elsewhere. This article draws on examples from the UK of how charities have linked with chocolate and soft drink companies. Examples include: “For every Easter egg bought on the Cadbury Worldwide Hide, Cadbury will donate an Easter egg to a food bank in our network”; a Coca-Cola initiative in December 2021 “Win a meal, give a meal on-pack competition across Coca-Cola Original Taste and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar consumption packs, giving consumers the chance to win food-related vouchers, while donating to FareShare”; and an October 2021 initiative where “McDonald's joins forces with FareShare to fund 1 million meals for UK families”. These relationships go beyond companies donating surplus food to food charities such as food banks and pantries to encouraging consumers to buy their products with the promise that the company will contribute products to such charities or provide cash donations in return for the purchase of their product.

Food-Related Consumer Behavior Endorsing European Food Chain Sustainability—A Marketing Study on the Romanian Consumer

“…The confirmed findings of previous studies are as follows: malnutrition exists in Europe, and more specifically in Romania [9]; only 23% respondents have a very healthy diet; 39% consumers do not trust in products' claim of sustainability [18] and 35% are not aware of the sustainability labels [19]; 39% consumers trust and know they need European supportive regulations for sustainable behaviors [48]; 30% declare they need support services [50] including recycling facilities in the proximity of their home; and 56% declare that they would be influenced by marketing communication educating on healthy and sustainable habits [7]. On another hand, some of the results differ from previous studies' findings; for example: Romanian consumers are not yet aware of food sharing platforms [30][31][32][33][34]. In this sample, there are three consumer types with transitioning behavior, one with circular behavior, and none with the linear one [46].…”

“…According to EUROSTAT [10], in 2019, 56.4% adult Romanians were overweight and 10.5% obese, comparable to EU-27, with 51.3% Europeans overweight and 16% obese. This is mainly a social problem, but it has economic implications, since it costs "EU Governments up to 120 billion euros annually" [2] (p. 34).…”

“…Different studies show that technological advancement [30,31] and digital world [32] changed the agri-food sector, allowing people to valorize the food wastage not only by composting, but also by sharing or accessing other people's or companies' goods. Concerns were raised, though, that food sharing could encourage people to continue reckless food buying [33], that health and hygiene cannot be regulated [30] and that it offers a false feeling that food insecurity and hunger is under control [34].…”

Nutritional adequacy of charitable food aid packages to the needs of different household-types: a case study in Spain

“…In different European contexts, food aid has been described as part of the new charity economy, where surplus or expired goods from the primary economy are sent to a secondary system, where they are distributed for free or sold at discounted rates by volunteers or low-wage workers (49,52). Moreover, in-kind food aid has strong links with agrifood businesses, who, as part of its corporate social responsibility agenda, often offer or sell surplus food with favorable conditions to charities and food banks (53). The FEAD fund, based on food purchases, was conceived to guarantee a stable provision of food aid, but extension of the execution period due to the COVID pandemic has created shortages during this nal stage before it is integrated into the FSE+ (54).…”

Non-market distribution serves society in ways markets cannot: A tentative defense of food charity from small-town New England

“…Anthropologist Maggie Dickinson (2020) notes that even as U.S. social spending has actually increased steadily since the mid-1980s, much of it now goes to voluntary, private organizations such as emergency food providers that, unlike public entitlements, do not offer poor people any enforceable rights. Anti-hunger leader Andrew Fisher (2017) contends that everexpanding emergency food operations have become a "hunger industrial complex" that depends on the existence of food-insecure people (Azadian et al, 2022;Caraher & Furey, 2022). Fisher argues that food charities rarely take political stances on poverty-related issues such as the minimum wage because they receive money and food, as well as installing board members, from businesses that benefit from paying low wages to an impoverished underclass of workers that in turn relies on that same emergency food system (2017).…”