The Mega Corporations That Control What Americans Eat

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Tracy Alloway (0:20)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:26)

Joe, you know what I'm excited about?

Joe Weisenthal (0:29)

This could go anywhere, so I'm not gonna guess, just tell me.

Tracy Alloway (0:31)

So we're recording this on March 19th. It is the first official day of spring, and that means that soon it will be berry time, specifically strawberries.

Joe Weisenthal (0:42)

I think many parents are talking about these days, but the berry budget that parents pay because-

Tracy Alloway (0:48)

When you said that, I was like, smart people are talking about strawberries.

Joe Weisenthal (0:52)

No, seriously, this is like a persistent gripe among parents, like how much we have to pay for our kids' fresh berry habit. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, they're really expensive, and kids just devour them.

Tracy Alloway (1:07)

And kids these days are spoiled. When I was growing up, I had fruit roll ups, which I don't even think you could classify as a fruit product.

And all these kids have organic, freshly grown blueberries and raspberries.

Joe Weisenthal (1:19)

Totally, it's totally crazy. So when I was a kid, like, yeah, we had like apples. And in the summer, we had stone fruits, you know, peaches and stuff, and then like grapefruit. And that was it.

Tracy Alloway (1:28)

So where do you buy your strawberries from or other berries?

Joe Weisenthal (1:32)

Actually, before I answer that question, I want to say one other thing about my childhood, you know, that may be relevant to this conversation, which is that my grandmother in Michigan, her husband, her second husband, she lived when I was growing up on a farm in Allegan, Michigan. It had dairy, it had cows and stuff, but it also had like all these orchards and the stuff there, peaches and cherries and apples. And it was just like wonderful. And we had a great time as kids. We had gone to the orchard. So I did actually have a lot of fresh fruit and I haven't been there in many years, but my understanding, I believe that farm is gone. And now it's just entirely like soy or some grain, like all of those orchards are gone. And it's just like one sort of like efficient unit crop farm these days.

Tracy Alloway (2:18)

It's a microcosm of America's agricultural evolution.

All right. Wait, but you didn't answer the question. Where do you get your strawberries and blueberries and things from?

Joe Weisenthal (2:27)

I don't know, probably Trader Joe's usually, I think.

I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, probably usually Trader Joe's.

Tracy Alloway (2:36)

Can you remember the brand?

Joe Weisenthal (2:38)

It's that one. I don't remember the name, but it's that one berry brand, I'm sure.

Tracy Alloway (2:42)

It's almost 100% certain to be Driscoll's.

Joe Weisenthal (2:45)

Yeah, that's right. And I specifically associate them with strawberries, but yes.

Tracy Alloway (2:50)

So I think if you go into almost any grocery store in America, you are likely to find Driscoll's berries of one sort or another. And the crazy thing about Driscoll's is for me, they're pretty much synonymous with berries. You think berries, you think Driscoll's, there's a brand there.

However, they don't actually grow any of their own berries.

Joe Weisenthal (3:11)

I did not know that. That's really interesting. And it really is weird that there's like a brand that's the berry brand. You say that and it hadn't really clicked to me that there is like the berry company in America, but yeah, there's the berry company in America. It's Driscoll's.

Tracy Alloway (3:24)

All right, so as excited as I am about berries this year and in the interests of equalizing corporate America, I am growing my own berry supply in Connecticut. So I will achieve berry independence this year. That's right. But I think it's sort of emblematic of a few themes that have come up on the show in one way or another. Number one is the decisions that have gone into creating America's agricultural landscape as it exists today. So you just mentioned the farm in Michigan, your old family farm used to have a fruit orchard, used to grow a variety of different things and now grows a single uni-crop, probably soy or something like that.

We've spoken about this at various times on the podcast, so it keeps coming up. The other big theme has to be antitrust and the concentration of power in a few specific areas. So how did it come to be that Driscoll's dominates the berry market?