Food companies in industrial countries are registering almost no economic growth. That’s why large multinationals, like Nestle and Unilever, are now looking to make it big in new markets. Their latest target? Threshold and developing countries, such as Brazil and Kenya.
In this documentary the above countries are used as two examples, to demonstrate how these food conglomerates are making big bucks at the expense of people’s health. They promise healthy branded quality food and beverage products for everyone, but what they mainly sell are convenience products containing lots of salt, sugar, and flavor enhancers. The result? An increase in diseases such as obesity and diabetes, in societies that are already burdened by poverty and malnutrition.
Convenience foods made in Europe are considered a status symbol in many threshold and developing countries. Multinational corporations In Brazil and Kenya are cashing in on this image by targeting the poor with their advertising campaigns. In Kenya they even tailored their product range to so-called PPP or “Popularly Positioned Products”. These are band name products in small packages which are sold for just a few cents. Women from the slums are trained to distribute the products in their private social circles. These jobs are highly sought-after and there’s no shortage of women, most of them unskilled, who are very keen to work for international food companies.
Ow but don’t worry, the companies are not there just to make money. They like to show themselves taking social responsibility in areas where the state does not. Kenya has a population of around forty-five million of which nineteen million are poor and where almost half the population lives on less than two euros a day. Brazil has a population of two hundred million of which around forty-two million are poor. In recent years, increasing numbers have climbed to the lowest rung of the middle class. But this group has health problems: rates of obesity and diabetes are rapidly increasing. Critics like Dr. Carlos Monteiro, Professor of Nutrition and Health at the University of São Paulo, say that’s a total contradiction:
the companies are distributing unhealthy products en masse to the people while at the same time presenting themselves as benefactors: “Greenwashing” at the expense of the poorest in society.