Change the way Brand Names do business?

[lola]

Oxfam America sent this link.

I don't buy many of these brands, but dear little old Twining's on the Strand?

www.behindthebrands.org/en-us?redirect

[bixaorellana]

The only brand on there I ever buy, & that hardly ever, is Coca-Cola. It's owned by itself & rated as "41% -- some progress".

So I'm better off slurping an evil carbonated sugary drink than Lola & her sedate, not unhealthful tea?

[Deleted]

It would be exceedingly difficult to avoid all of the brands owned by Nestlé and Danone in Europe. Sometimes it seems as though they have split up the world between them.

[mossie]

We are all at the mercy of the "big battalions". Soon we will have to go to the blacksmith to be shod and get our food via a bag slung round our necks.

[onlymark]

Neigh lad.

[slowcoach]

Oxfam is of course a brand, with some resemblance to a franchise. It displays some brand tendencies.

From Oxfam America's website (1st sentence of the "Our History" segment) :

"In 1942, a group of Quaker intellectuals, social activists, and Oxford academics formed the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief in response to the plight of refugees in Greece."

The reference to refugees is misleading, it refers to the systematic starvation of Greek people by an occupying power and a blockading power (loosely the German Reich and the British Empire). This is a tidying up of history by an organisation that campaigned against the inhumanity of the country in which it was founded. Their concerns also included the starvation the Belgium population at that same time.

I really do wish that organisations such as these would stick to the facts. The treatment of Greece (and several other EU countries) during and after WWII, casts other EU countries in a bad light. In the case of Greece, knowledge of that history will go some way to putting their current attitudes into a context. The imposition of great hardship at the hands of those in Berlin is an echo not lost on all Greeks. What opinion they may hold concerning the involvement of the allied powers (initially the British) is possibly darker.

Now I seem to be treating the OXFAM franchise/alliance/whatever a bit harshly over one reference. I think it is an important reference given that the same power issues between countries haven't changed much in seventy years. They have indulged in airbrushing, I don't think anyone would refer to the victims of the Dutch Famine as refugees, there was no refuge, the same should be true for Greece.

[Deleted]

Well, the various authorities certainly avoid using the 'R' word in this century, since refugees have a certain number of rights under UN (and other) resolutions. Nowadays, most refugees are labeled 'illegal immigrants' to make sure they can be disposed of (deported) without guilt.

[lola]

So, putting this into terms I can understand,
dear little Twinings = bad
AND
Oxfam = bad, too.
BUT
Coke = still more or less OK.

[lagatta]

Yes, it is very hard to avoid some of these brands such as Danone and Nestle, and I'm sure Coca Cola makes other things I've bought. A lot of house brands are produced by these conglomerates as well.

The only ones I can recall burying were the Patak's-Twinings-Ryvita whose parent company has a very poor score, but it is not due to the products I've bought, unless there are poor working conditions among the tea workers - or among the farmers producing the spices going into Patak's spice pastes.

It is important to be aware of the conditions under which our food is produced. But I find the campaign over general; it would be better to target certain firms with particularly egregious bad practices, and be more specific about those.

[Deleted]

These companies change hands to often that I can't keep up with it -- it would be a full time occupation.

For example, I clicked on "Milka," one of the principal milk chocolate brands in Europe, made by Suchard, which in my mind had been bought by Kraft = Philip Morris But the link says it is now owned by Mondelez (Cadbury & Oreo), which I had never even heard of. So I check out Mondelez to discover that it is just a new name for Kraft (since October 2012). Philip Morris Altria sold Kraft in 2007. From the Wiki article, I can't even figure out who owns it now, but it spends all of its time swapping brands with Nestlé and Danone.

[mossie]

The rationale behind these companies frequently changing hands is to stop the taxman and the legal authorities from catching up with them. After all the bosses must be free to enjoy their multi million salaries unmolested.