Search results: Coca Cola

The Business Roundtable’s Statement (and see B Corporation Statement below)

The Business Roundtable, an organization of corporations, issued a statement last week—in a two-page advertisement with all the signatures in the Wall Street Journal, no less—that got this New York Times headline: Shareholder Value Is No Longer Everything, Top C.E.O.s Say.

What?  This is some kind of joke, right?

I’ve been arguing for years that the Shareholder Value Movement, which forced corporations to single-mindedly focus on maximizing profits at the expense of every other societal value—attention to the welfare of workers, farm animals, public health, environmental protection—is responsible for just about everything that is wrong with our food system.

Corporations are now saying that they are committing to change that?

The Business Roundtable’s press release says that it is redefining the purpose of corporations to promote an economy that serves all Americans—customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.   Here is its website with all the commitment info.

Its statement, signed by nearly 200 corporations, commits them to [with my comments]:

• Delivering value to our customers [they aren’t already doing this?].
• Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly and providing important benefits [this would indeed be a groundbreaking improvement].
• Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers [they weren’t doing this either?].
• Supporting the communities in which we work [another excellent idea].
• Generating long-term value for shareholders [isn’t this what they’ve been doing to the detriment of everything else?]

This sounds good, but how do they plan to solve the central dilemma?  How do they intend to pay workers decent wages, improve the communities in which they operate, and stop damaging the environment—and still maximize benefits for shareholders?

No surprise, they don’t say.

Also, as the Times noted,

There was no mention at the Roundtable of curbing executive compensation, a lightning-rod topic when the highest-paid 100 chief executives make 254 times the salary of an employee receiving the median pay at their company. And hardly a week goes by without a major company getting drawn into a contentious political debate. As consumers and employees hold companies to higher ethical standards, big brands increasingly have to defend their positions on worker pay, guns, immigration, President Trump and more.

I looked for food corporations among the signers (sorry if I missed any):

• Aramark
• Bayer (it owns Monsanto)
• Coca-Cola
• Land O’Lakes
• PepsiCo
• Procter & Gamble
• Walmart

This is a small list.  Where, for example, are Mars, Nestlé, and Unilever?

I see this as flat out public relations, a response to increasing public distrust of corporate America and demands for corporate accountability.

If the signers mean business, let’s see them deal with workers’ wages right away.

Otherwise, I’m not holding my breath

The B Corporation Statement

And here’s more.  Sunday’s New York Times carried this advertisement from Certified B Corporations “meeting the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.”

The ad is addressed to Business Rountable CEOs.

We are part of a community of Certified B Corporations who are walking the walk of stakeholder capitalism…We operate with a better model of corporate governance—benefit corporate governance—which gives us, and could give you, a way to combat short-termism and the freedom to make decisions to balance profit and purpose.

Among its food company signers are Ben & Jerry’s, Cabot Creamery Cooperative, Danone North America, King Arthur Flour, Sir Kensington’s, Stonyfield Organic, and Stumptown Coffee (there are others, as well).

I read this as a challenge: if the Business Rountable CEOs are serious about ensuring as B Corporations do, that “the purpose of capitalism is to work for everyone and for the long term,” why don’t they start by becoming B Corporations?

Until they do, the Business Roundtable statement is smoke and mirrors, to distract us from the damage the corporations are doing to our society and to our democratic institutions.

FoodNavigator-USA.com, an industry newsletter, has a collection of articles about Kombucha, a drink that Wikipedia defines as:

A fermented, slightly alcoholic, lightly effervescent, sweetened black or green tea drink commonly intended as a functional beverage for its supposed health benefits. Sometimes the beverage is called kombucha tea to distinguish it from the culture of bacteria and yeast.  Juice, spices, or other flavorings are often added to enhance the taste of the beverage. The exact origins of kombucha are not known…Kombucha is produced by fermenting sugared tea using a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) commonly called a “mother” or “mushroom”…The living bacteria are said to be probiotic, one of the reasons for the drink’s popularity.

Slightly alcoholic?  No wonder it is so popular.

It’s obviously a major seller.  Here is the dedicated Kombucha display at the Wegmans upstate in Ithaca, New York.

The makers of kombucha want to sell more of it.  Here’s what they think the market issues are these days:

• Aqua ViTea: The kombucha industry has not dealt with its alcohol problem: <Raising the threshold above which kombucha would be classified as an alcoholic beverage from 0.5% to 1.25% abv, is not the way to deal with the industry’s alcohol problem, says Vermont-based kombucha brand Aqua ViTea, which utilizes spinning cone technology to remove most of the alcohol from its products before bottling… Read
• GT Dave backs kombucha standard of identity: ‘I hope this will encourage people to take the high road’: Defining what kombucha is – and just as importantly, what it isn’t – is mission critical if industry pioneers are to preserve the integrity of the category as more brands enter the segment, argues GT Dave, founder of market leader GT’s Living Foods… Read  
• WATCH: Bare Bucha and Stout Tanks unveil radical new approach to controlling alcohol in kombucha:  A novel approach to brewing kombucha in stackable rectangular trays could help dramatically speed up the fermentation process and keep alcohol levels consistently below 0.5% abv, solving a major technical challenge for the industry, according to kombucha brand Bare Bucha and craft brewery equipment supplier Stout Tanks… Watch now
• Kombucha and fermented beverage sales are up 21%, but velocities are down, says SPINS:  US retail sales of refrigerated kombucha and other fermented beverages (including hard kombucha) were up 21% to $728.8m in measured channels* in the year to February 24, 2019 driven by strong distribution gains. However, velocities were down fairly sharply, delegates at the 2019 KombuchaKon conference were told… Read
• What’s an ‘authentic’ kombucha? Let the market decide, say Rowdy Mermaid and Camellia Grove:  Trade association Kombucha Brewers International (KBI) wants lawmakers to raise the threshold above which kombucha would be classified as an alcoholic beverage from 0.5% to 1.25% abv, and is gearing up to publish a standard of identity for ‘authentic’ kombucha. But not everyone is on board… Read
• What is an ‘authentic’ kombucha? KBI gears up to publish definition:  As a wave of lawsuits has brought the debate over what kombucha is and how it is made into sharper focus, trade association Kombucha Brewers International (KBI) is putting the finishing touches on a standard it claims will help preserve the integrity of the category as it grows… Read

And here’s a later addition:

• The mojo behind MOJO: Coca-Cola’s recently acquired kombucha brand shares secrets of success: Australian firm MOJO Kombucha’s pledge to authenticity and no artificial sweeteners are what have helped it grow from a small family business to becoming a major name in the country, and recently being acquired by beverage giant Coca-Cola, according to a top company official…Read

A notice from FoodNavigator-Asia got my attention: Coca-Cola is partnering with the New Zealand dairy company Fonterra to produce “Nutriboost” products for Southeast Asia.

What are these?

• Nutriboost Kids is targeted at children above three years of age, with each of its products being fortified with different occasion-based vitamins and minerals:…Morning Growth (fortified with vitamins for growth), Playtime (designed for stronger immunity) and Good Night (fortified with DHA for brain development).
• Nutriboost To-Go is an energy-providing breakfast range enriched with oats and fibre.
• Nutriboost Beauty is fortified with fitness and beauty-associated minerals like collagen and zinc.

Given the lack of evidence for significant nutritional benefits of any of these things, and the high prevalence of lactose intolerance among Asian populations, why this partnership?

• Vietnam is the third largest dairy market in the ASEAN region.
• To grow [sales] to 40 million or 50 million cases within the next five years.
• Coca-Cola’s strategy is to evolve away from drinks with high sugar content.

The article doesn’t say how much money is going into this partnership, but both companies must think there is a big market for such products.

I’m not a fan of “functional” foods, alas.

Real food, anyone?

This is BeverageDaily.com’s monthly beer special, from the industry’s point of view.  If you don’t think of beer as an industry, think again.

• Flexible, diverse breweries are the way forward for small craft: The craft beer industry is navigating a more mature growth pattern in 2019: a theme that was explored at the 36th annual Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Denver… Read
• Outdoor clothing brand Patagonia sues Anheuser-Busch over ‘copycat’ beer brand: Outdoor clothing and gear brand Patagonia, Inc has filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch: accusing the beer giant of ‘attempting to copy Patagonia’s famous brand identity’ with its Patagonia beer brand… Read
• Constellation Brands: ‘2019 sees a monumental shift for Corona as it expands into a more comprehensive beer family’:  Constellation Brands is expanding its core Corona brand with new launches that appeal to a wider range of consumers and occasions – including the nationwide US rollout this month of premium alcohol-spiked refresher Corona Refresca… Read
• ‘Probably not the best beer in the world – so we’ve changed it’: Carlsberg challenges drinkers to reappraise its beer: Carlsberg is relaunching in the UK with a rebrewed lager, accompanied by ‘its most honest consumer campaign ever’. Will its relaunch be able to shake up the mainstream – and can it encourage a new generation of drinkers to re-appraise its beer?.. Read
• US craft beer has settled into a ‘more mature growth pattern’: The Brewers Association (BA) released its annual growth report this week: showing craft brewery volumes have increased by 4% and now account for 13.2% of the US beer market… Read
• Samuel Adams Summer Ale gets first recipe change in 23 years: US brewer Samuel ‘Sam’ Adams has updated the formula of its seasonal favorite Summer Ale with ‘lighter and brighter’ flavors… Read
• New Zealand boasts more breweries per capita than the US, UK and Australia:  New Zealand now has more breweries on a per capita basis than the US, UK and Australia: creating a $2.3bn ($1.6bn USD) industry. And there’s still plenty of room to grow: “Highlighting our home-grown ingredients and locally produced products will go a long way to boost the overall New Zealand beer brand,” says The Brewers Association of New Zealand… Read
• Reshaping beer: Better labels, advanced branding tech and new bottle formats: Beer packaging has been a ‘sea of sameness’ for decades, according to glass container manufacturer O-I. Traditional amber glass bottles and aluminum cans covered in paper labels has been the norm, but the time may be ripe for a major change… Read
• Craft beer trends: ‘Huge growth’ in lower alcohol brews and beer in cans: The UK craft beer market is seeing ‘huge growth’ in cans and no & low alcohol beers, according to online craft beer distribution marketplace EeBriaTrade… Read
• Guinness stops using plastic packaging with its beer: Diageo’s beer brands will replace plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap with recyclable and biodegradable cardboard: the equivalent of removing 40 million plastic bottles from the world… Read
• Zero hero? Heineken wants no-alcohol beer to rival Coke in Singapore following Europe sales boom: Heineken’s new zero-alcohol beer Heineken 0.0 is the brand’s pioneering foray into the Low and No Alcohol (LNA) category in Singapore, with the firm targeting availability in locations such as salad bars, gyms and offices as it seeks to rival soft drinks giants such as Coca-Cola… Read
• Suntory Beer installs 3D printing technology to print images on beer: Suntory Beer has partnered with Ripples to roll out 700 Ripple Maker PM devices to print 3D images, emojis and messages onto beer… Read
• BrewDog acquires Berlin brewery and taproom from Stone Brewing: Scottish craft brewer BrewDog is acquiring Stone Brewing’s brewery and taproom in Berlin. It has also announced the latest round of Equity for Punks to fund its plans for a brewery in China and craft beer hotel in London… Read
• Lion acquires Magic Rock Brewing: Australian beer and beverage company Lion has acquired 100% of UK craft brewer Magic Rock Brewing Company, as it seeks to become ‘a key player’ in the UK craft market… Read
• Dunkin’ releases second beer innovation with Harpoon Brewery: Last fall Dunkin’ announced a limited edition partnership with Harpoon Brewery for its first-ever beer, the Harpoon Dunkin’ Coffee Porter. The two have teamed up again for a warm weather brew, the Harpoon Dunkin’ Summer Coffee Pale Ale. Dunkin’ also recently expanded its Signature Latte line with three permanent flavors… Read

And, thanks to reader Polly Adema, here is one more:

• Beer as a wellness beverage?  The mind boggles.

The George Institute in Australia (see clarification below) publishes an annual index holding the ten largest U.S. food and beverage corporations accountable for how they addrss nutrition challenges.

The 2018 Index ranks corporations on their governance, products, accessability, marketing, lifestyle, labeling, and engagement.  Here’s what it looks like.

Here’s how this is explained:

Seven out of ten companies claim to focus on improving health and nutrition (all except Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper Snapple and Kraft Heinz), as expressed in their mission statements or corporate growth strategies, the objectives they defined related to health and wellness are mostly limited to product development, product reformulation and responsible marketing. Only two companies (Nestlé and Unilever) have defined a more comprehensive set of objectives within their nutrition strategy.

To remind you: food corporations are not social service or public health agencies.  They have stockholders to please as their first priority.  The conflicts of interest with public health approaches are obvious.  That’s why none of them does particularly well on this Index.

Clarification from a reader

I believe you are referring to the US Spotlight Index, a product of the Access to Nutrition Foundation, an independent nonprofit in the Netherlands.  (https://www.accesstonutrition.org).  The George Institute provided research support for the US Spotlight index. RWJF [Robert Wood Johnson Foundation] was a major funder.  The Foundation has also published an India Spotlight Index (2016) and a Global Index (latest in 2018).  Shiriki Kumanyika chairs the Expert Group.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)) and the American Heart Association (AHA) have issued a joint statement endorsing soda taxes along with other policies aimed at reducing risks for childhood obesity (the full statement is published in Pediatrics).

The AAP and AHA recommend:

• Local, state and national policymakers should consider raising the price of sugary drinks, such as via an excise tax, along with an accompanying educational campaign. Tax revenues should go in part toward reducing health and socioeconomic disparities.

• Federal and state governments should support efforts to decrease sugary drink marketing to children and teens.

• Healthy drinks such as water and milk should be the default beverages on children’s menus and in vending machines, and federal nutrition assistance programs should ensure access to healthy food and beverages and discourage consumption of sugary drinks.

• Children, adolescents, and their families should have ready access to credible nutrition information, including on nutrition labels, restaurant menus, and advertisements.

• Hospitals should serve as a model and establish policies to limit or discourage purchase of sugary drinks.

Comment:  This action of the AAP is truly remarkable.  In 2015, this Academy was heavily criticized for taking funding from Coca-Cola and, surely not coincidentally, saying little about the need for children to reduce consumption of sugary drinks.  Once exposed, the AAP said it could no longer accept that funding. I did, however, hear an alternative story.  Coca-Cola officials told me that as a result of their transparency initiative, the company would no longer fund the Pediatric, Dietetic, and Family Practice Academies.  It is also hardly a coincidence that now that the AAP no longer takes money from Coke, it is free to promote soda taxes as a useful public health strategy.

The industry newsletter, NutraIngredients.com, regularly posts Special Editions on Probiotics, meaning collections of its articles on the topic.  These promote the benefits—to digestion and many other physiological and mental aspects—of eating healthy bacteria.   But do probiotics really work?  And could they actually be harmful?  See comments below these selected articles.

• • Baby faeces’ ‘good bacteria’ a solid basis for disease-tackling probiotic supplement: ‘Good bacteria’ found in infant faeces could form the basis of a probiotic supplement that could help lower disease risk as researchers point to babies’ good health and absence of age-related diseases as good starting points… Read 
  • Survival of the fittest: Gut colonisation study could lead to gene-targeting probiotics: New probiotic products targeting individual genes for gut microbial diversity could be on the horizon after researchers outline a data-based approach that identifies the growth of beneficial microbes… Read 
  • Use of probiotics linked to brain sluggishness and stomach bloating: Study:  The use of probiotics could lead to a build-up of bacteria in the gut causing brain fogginess, US researchers conclude, as they also note its use is linked to bloating of the stomach… Read
  • No BBC, probiotics are not ‘quite useless’: A new BBC article dismisses the benefits of probiotics because a study failed to find colonization. It is a serious mistake to confuse colonization with efficacy and we need to get this message across to consumers… Read  
  • Delivery systems a ‘determining factor’ in probiotic success, suggests Lumina Intelligence: Delivery systems for probiotic supplements will determine probiotic storage, release time and viability through the body, according to recent research with these systems’ ability largely determining product success… Read  
  • Prebiotics as a concept still not well understood by many consumers, experts say: Research done by the Global Prebiotic Association shows that prebiotics as a concept is gaining traction with dedicated supplement users but has a long way to go to gain mainstream acceptance… Read
  • Focus on functional sports benefits seen as growing opportunity within microbiome research: Research in the effects of exercise on the microbiome has boosted not just a recent startup, but will fuel a growing category within the wider field of probiotics, an expert says… Read
  • Why PepsiCo, Coca-cola are betting on functional food and beverage brands: Legacy CPG companies PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have each snapped up or invested heavily in a functional food and beverage brand this year… Read
  • Highlights from the Harvard Probiotics Symposium: The recent Harvard Probiotics Symposium brought together scientific experts from across the globe to discuss: “Gut Health, Microbiota & Probiotics Throughout the Lifespan: Dietary Influences”. Here’s what we learned… Read
  • Prebiotic combination shows metabolic benefits for adults with acne: Pilot data: A combination of fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) and galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) prebiotics may improve glycemic and lipid metabolic measures in women with acne, suggests a small study from Italy… Read

Two recent articles in Cell raise questions about the benefits of probiotics.

• Personalized Gut Mucosal Colonization Resistance to Empiric Probiotics Is Associated with Unique Host and Microbiome Features: Probiotics transiently colonize the human gut mucosa in highly individualized patterns, thereby differentially impacting the indigenous microbiome and host gene-expression profile, a trait which is predictable by baseline host and microbiome features, but not by stool shedding.
• Post-Antibiotic Gut Mucosal Microbiome Reconstitution Is Impaired by Probiotics and Improved by Autologous FMT: Probiotics perturb rather than aid in microbiota recovery back to baseline after antibiotic treatment in humans.

In translation:

• The murine [mouse] & human gut mucosal microbiome only partially correlates with stool
• Mice feature an indigenous-microbiome driven colonization resistance to probiotics
• Humans feature a person-specific gut mucosal colonization resistance to probiotics
• Probiotic colonization is predictable by pre-treatment microbiome & host features

In further translation:

• Not everyone responds to probiotics, which means that they may be worth a try and you may get lucky.

And an even more recent article in JAMA Internal Medicine questions whether probiotics might be harmful.  It warns about:

• The safety of bacteria in probiotic supplements has not been fully established.
• They can lead to infections and allergic reactions.
• Probiotic supplements often do not meet manufacturing standards (identity, purity, strength, composition).
• Introduction of new genes for antibiotic resistance into microbiomes.

The article concludes:

Consumers and physicians should not assume that the label on probiotic supplements provides adequate information to determine if consuming the live microorganism is worth the risk.

What to think about all this?  If you like yogurt, enjoy!  But supplements are another matter.

Coming October 30:  My new book about food company sponsorship of nutrition research and its effects on public health.

The Kirkus review (August 1)

A leading nutritionist asks whether consumers can trust highly publicized research into whether food and beverages are healthy and safely produced.

Nestle (Emerita, Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health/New York Univ.; Big Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning), 2015, etc.), who has a doctorate in molecular biology and a master’s degree in public health nutrition and has conducted decades of research into food producers, is perfectly positioned for this topic. She makes the convincing case that because so much of the research is paid for by industries that benefit from the results, buyers should interpret the results skeptically. Many of Nestle’s previous books, articles, and academic studies focused on specific types of food. Here, the author turns her attention to large corporations, investigating why they pay for supposedly independent researchers, why the quality of the research might be compromised by conflicts of interests, how consumers can separate reliable science from compromised science, and why consumers should lobby legislators, government regulatory agencies, and universities for reforms regarding the disclosure of conflicts. Nestle emphasizes research paid for and disseminated by the sugar/candy industry, producers of dairy foods, marketers of meat, and—in its own chapter, “A Case Study in Itself”—the soda giant Coca-Cola. Since the author is a prolific nutrition researcher who has accepted funding that could involve conflicts of interest, she admirably scrutinizes her own policies of funding and how she discloses it. Ultimately, researchers must act as ethicists as well as scientists. When her own studies and those of fellow researchers become marketing tools for multinational conglomerates, the author admits that she feels queasy about how consumers might be misled by the marketing. On the other hand, she writes, some studies paid for by industry can be trusted scientifically—and be marketed and advertised responsibly.

Nestle proves yet again that she is a unique, valuable voice for engaged food consumers.

Other early reviews & interviews based on the bound galley proofs

Sept 25 La Stampa (Italy): “I cibi di lunga vita sono illusori e troppi sponsor li promuovono.”

Sept 24  Publishers Weekly: ” a groundbreaking look at how food corporations influence nutrition research and public
policy.”

Aug 13 Booklist review: “This well-documented, accessible venture makes a compelling argument.”

Aug 1  Kirkus review: “Nestle proves yet again that she is a unique, valuable voice for engaged food consumers.”

July 17  Phil Lempert’s Lempert Report: Get ready for a new era of transparency (video)

July 9  David Wineberg, “Nutrition: conflict of interest as a career,” Medium.com.

Feb 12 Finnish Public Radio interview about Unsavory Truth (Google Translate, English)

Jan 31 Profile in New Scientist: The Unpalatable Truth about Your Favorite foods