Crunch time for corporates

Lindsay Whalen finds out how the cookie crumbles.

A cup of tea and a couple of biscuits sounds relaxing, but what lurks beneath the innocuous chocolate digestive? The McVities digestive is owned by United Biscuits which in turn is owned by a consortium called Finalrealm. Finalrealm is controlled by Cinven, PAI Partners, Nabisco and MidOcean Partners.(1) So who are these companies?

Corporate labyrinth
One Cinven subsidiary distinguishes itself by supplying parts to the military aircraft industry,2 whilst a PAI Partners subsidiary supplies animal feedstuffs, including a feed additive to improve milk yields.(3) More familiar is MidOcean’s owner Deutsche Bank, which is famous for financing the Narmada Dam in India4 and the Three Gorges Dam in China.="refnumber">(5) It has also added funding destruction of Indonesian rainforest to its resumé.(6)

If you’ve never heard of these companies though, you must have heard of Nabisco’s owner Kraft, which is part of Philip Morris.(7) Yes, that’s the company that makes Marlboro cigarettes, but it's not called Philip Morris anymore. It’s called Altria because it hopes to disassociate itself from the tobacco industry. Altria and other tobacco firms were the focus of a $280bn civil trial filed by the Clinton administration arguing that the firms had conspired to hide the dangers of smoking for decades, and had illegally marketed cigarettes to children.(8) The final £7.7bn in penalties against tobacco companies were so much lower than the recommended $130bn that the Democrats have accused the Bush administration of bending to the tobacco industry.(9)

It’s not only digestives that are dodgy. Ethical faves Green & Black’s has recently been bought out by Cadbury Schweppes. The move has knocked Green & Black’s from Ethical Consumer’s regular top spots to worst on the table. Consumer concern about the takeover seems to have caught William Kendall, Green & Black’s Chief Executive, on the hop, as he recently commented that: “it is fair to say that quite a few of our customers are genuinely concerned about our decision to allow Cadbury Schweppes to buy more shares in the company.”14 This backlash probably has something to do with an organic chocolate company, maker of the excellent vegan, fair trade Maya Gold, becoming part of a company criticised for, amongst other things: using unsustainable palm oil from South East Asia10 and funding a supposedly independent think tank which claimed that concerns over growing obesity in the British population were over-rated.11

Funny fodder
So what else has changed since Ethical Consumer last covered biscuits? GM ingredients have been banned from biscuits sold in the UK. This isn’t the case in the US though. Nabisco’s cookies contained GM ingredients in 2002,(12) and Nabisco’s owner Kraft has dubious policies on GM. Kraft’s website states it does not restrict food from animals fed GM and uses biotech ingredients in North America, Latin America (except Brazil) and Asia Pacific.

However, despite Europe’s preferable position on GM, the issue has not gone away as milk powder, eggs and butter ingredients may be derived from animals fed GM crops. Fox’s, McVities, and Burton’s biscuits (owned by Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst) are all mentioned in Greenpeace’s Shopper’s Guide to GM because they cannot guarantee that their ingredients are sourced from animals fed a non-GM diet. The only way to ensure that your biccies are GM free is to buy organic or vegan (or both!). Buying vegan will also ensure that no animals have suffered for your sweet tooth. Organic and vegan options in the brand range are indicated by an O or V next to the name on the table.

Voluntary regulation
Biscuits were regular features in my childhood sweet jar, and careful marketing ensures it's the same for kids today. Irresponsible marketing of unhealthy products to the most vulnerable is more pervasive than ever. Burton’s Foods Jammie Dodgers website proudly proclaims that its new ad campaign will be showing “in kids films at a cinema near you.” United Biscuits has a website called www.123healthybalance.com which claims that it “recognises the concerns about obesity and is working hard to be part of the solution.” However, when ECRA had a look, United Biscuits’ healthy website seemed to be advocating snacking between meals. The companies three snack examples are apples, digestive biscuits and Hula Hoops as “part of a healthy diet.” It also advocated “lower fat options from the Go Ahead! Range.”(15) Earlier this year McVities was reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for an ad campaign for its Go Ahead range of supposedly healthier products. The ads were said to focus on the lower fat content of the cereal bars and cakes, whilst omitting to mention that the items were still high in sugar and therefore had questionable health benefits. The ASA were said to have told McVities not to use such an advertising approach again.(12)

Sustain: the Alliance for Better Food and Farming is a charity campaigning for the government to introduce measures to protect children from commercial influences. Charlie Powell, Sustain’s Co-ordinator for the Children’s Food Bill Campaign, stated “the Government’s plan that the tobacco and alcohol industries would self-regulate and stop marketing practices which encourage young people to consume their products has not worked. There is no reason to believe that the Government’s hope that voluntary self-regulation can stop food and drink firms targeting children with advertising and promotions for ‘junk’ foods will be any more successful.” See the links below for more information about Sustain or involving your child’s school in their Grab5 campaign promoting fruit and veg.

Boreholes in Malawi
Traidcraft are the only brand included in the report producing Fairtrade certified biscuits. The company produce chocolate, ginger and organic brazil nut cookies. The fair trade sugar in Traidcraft’s double chocolate chip cookies comes from the Kasinthula Cane Growers’ Association (KCG) in Malawi. This sweet relationship kicked off in 2004, and since then the village of Kapasule has gained its own supply of safe, clean water from a borehole paid for with the fair trade premium. Before then, women and children had to carry water 1.5 kilometres from Siseu, the nearest village with clean water. Now, the whole village benefits and are keen for us to eat more cookies.

References

1 www.unitedbiscuits.co.uk 06/05
2 International Defence Directory 2004
3www.provimiltd.com 11/04
4 Power Finance 2002
5 www.probeinternational.org 2000
6 Friends of the Earth 2001
7 www.altria.com 12/04
8 ‘US government civil trial against tobacco industry,’ The Guardian 10/04
9 ‘Tobacco giants face $14bn claim, The Guardian, 06/05
10 Earth Matters 09/04
11 Food Magazine: No 69 06/05
12 www.truefoodnow.org 2002
13 Ends Report 363 04/05
14 www.greenandblacks.com viewed on 4/7/05
15 www.123healthybalance.com viewed on 1/7/05
16 ECRA shop survey 1/6/05