Ep. 1361: Driscoll's - Barons of Berries?

The Food Chain Radio

Austin Frerick, Author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry

(Food industry consolidation, Driscoll's Berries,

I once had the opportunity to broadcast a Food Chain Radio show from the Phil and Barbara Hamburger farm in Seneca, South Dakota.

The Hamburgers were farming corn, soy and wheat on 10,000 acres of land, and their second-floor farm office reminded me of the bridge of an aircraft carrier, as it looked out over what seemed to be an endless ocean of green. We talked about the economies that forced the Hamburgers to either get big or get out of the business of farming.

After the show was over, and the pleasantries exchanged, I headed out to the highway that led me into the little town of Seneca. By then it mid-afternoon and, being a bit hungry, I stopped at a Crazy Daze stand where cub scouts were selling hot dogs. I asked the scouts how their hot dog business was doing and they said, “You are the only customer so far!”

Fact is, there are no longer enough people left in many of the heartland’s small towns to keep cub scout hot dog stands in business! Many of the conditions that forced the Hamburger’s farm to grow so large, and the scouts’ hot dogs to suffer without customers, can be seen throughout the nation’s food chain.

In Barons, Austin Frerick holds up a number of very successful food businesses, like the Driscoll’s berry company, for how the companies have used the share-cropping of the antebellum South to control production and market share throughout America’s food chain.

Frerick leads us to ask:

Should successful food businesses, like that of Driscoll’s, be considered “robber barons.”

Connect: www.metrofarm.com