Leah Douglas of the Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) is keeping an ongoing map of where COVID-19 cases are clustered among meat-packing workers.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents 1.3 million workers, has these numbers for its members:

• 29,000 infections
• 238 deaths

Public Citizen reports that the USDA’s Inspector General’s latest report finds that the USDA used unreliable data and hid data from the public in order to allow higher line speeds in meatpacking plants.

The meat industry is defending against these charges.  See FoodManufacture.com’s “Coronavirus: meat industry in the firing line.”

But the U.S. is not alone in having appalling conditions in meatpacking plants, as FoodNavigator reports.  European meat-packing plants are just as bad, according to a report from the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions.

If anything good comes out of this pandemic, let’s hope it’s to do fix long-standing appalling conditions in meatpacking plants.

Need a movie?  Try Eric Schlosser’s and Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation from 2006.  It’s a fictionalized account of what happens in meatpacking plants, not much appreciated at the time it came out, but I bet it looks much more timely now.

Last week, I asked readers to tell me how the USDA’s Farmers to Families food box program looked on the ground.  I got a bunch of responses, but let me start with Andrew Coe’s op-ed in the New York Times, or, as he wrote me, his rant titled: “Free produce, with a side of shaming.”

The subheading: “Instead of beefing up the SNAP program during the pandemic, the government opts for a return to Depression-era food lines.”

The goal of the people on these lines?  “A food pantry that has cardboard containers stacked on the sidewalk in front.”

These are “U.S.D.A. Farmers to Families Food Boxes,” each holding 23 pounds of produce: apples, cantaloupes, potatoes, yams, oranges, iceberg lettuce, onions. When the men and women at last get to the front of the line, they are given one of these boxes to put in their shopping carts and take home. This food is supposed to help tide them over until they get a job, or until the next week, when they can line up again on the same sidewalk.

OK.  So my questions about this emergency—and highly unsustainable method for achieving the program’s concurrent goals, feeding the hungry and buying from farmers who don’t have any way to sell their products–are (1) is it providing decent food to those who need it, and (2) is it helping farmers who need help.

My correspondents provided some answers, although not enough to really know what is going on.

Two people sent me box labels:

One reader referred me to Instagram photos from #farmerstofamiliesfoodbox, and a Vermont public radio discussion of the boxes.

Another Vermont reader said that “The main contract was landed by a well-regarded local food service company – with the initial support of our agency of ag folks – and they’ve worked very closely with a number of other state, private and nonprofit groups to get a fair bit of regional and Vermont products – especially dairy – in the boxes.”  She referred me to an article about the program with this photo of a box with local dairy.

A California reader who works at a food bank said:

We had tons of food that volunteers bagged up individually. One big bag would get eggs, celery, potatoes, apples, nectarines, tangerines, and 1-2 bread products. When cars came to pick up their food, in addition to the bag above, which often had more than what’s noted there, they got a “regular” veggie farm box from Farm Fresh to You, a local CSA. It was all packed up and ready to go, delivered by a truck on a pallet.

I received a lengthy explanation from a food sourcing coordinator at a food bank in Colorado.  Here are some of her comments:

• We’ve seen our distribution increase by 40% since March.
• We secured a partnership with a large produce distributor in Missouri for produce boxes, and a regional milk distributor in Colorado. Deliveries from these vendors began on May 20.
• They’ve addressed issues with box size, transportation and pallet structural issues, and cancelling loads or adding additional deliveries as we requested.
• We are receiving 3.2 million pounds of CFAP product each month from these vendors, in the amounts and delivery schedule that we requested. This is a 50% increase over our pre-COVID monthly distribution numbers.

She talked about the problems they were having:

There was definitely a lot of confusion, miscommunication, and misinformation given to both food banks and the distributors by USDA. The program was touted to the food banks as being “truck to trunk”, with distributors delivering directly to distribution sites. However, after the vendors were awarded, the vast majority indicated that they…only had the capacity) to deliver to food bank warehouses with commercial dock doors and large amounts of storage.

When food banks attempted to push back and request funding from USDA or distributors in order to cover the substantial costs to them that this model would incur, the USDA told distributors that they could not subcontract with us. One vendor said that these requests amounted to “extortion” by food banks. [Our] Food Bank…ended up having to secure an additional warehouse, hire 5 staff, and rent 8 new vehicles in order to handle the amount of product we are receiving. The cost to us is about $100,000/month in order to take on the additional product. None of that cost is reimbursed by USDA, which is reimbursing the entire costs of procurement, packaging, and transportation for the distributors. Here’s a link to an article about those additional costs…. we’re fairly unique among food banks in being able and willing to incur those additional costs.

She sent a photo of what’s in the boxes, judging the quality as very high.

Does the program benefit small producers?

• The milk distributor is a local company.
• The onions and potatoes are also sourced from Colorado growers…[but] the Colorado growing season doesn’t kick into full gear until late June.
• Our meat is coming out of Wisconsin…subcontracted with another distributor…so I don’t know where that meat comes from.
• Many of our small farms who originally submitted bids for the program and were not awarded have not been included in produce sourcing by the distributors that were awarded.

Her conclusion: “While CFAP has definitely been a big lift for us to get up and running, and has had many stumbling blocks since its inception, the enormous amount of high-quality, very in-demand product that we’ve been able to distribute to our clients across Colorado and Wyoming has, in my mind, made the program a success for us.”

OK, so the program is working, as far as it goes, but at great cost.  I’m with Andy Coe on this one.  This is helping distributors more than farmers, and is demeaning to recipients.  There are much better ways to solve both problems.  If only we had the political will to take it on.

Addition

Jerry Hagstrom, of The Hagstrom Report, to which I faithfully subscribe, writes:

I don’t see any of your readers making the following points:

1. The object of the box program was to find a way to make use of the foods–particularly fruits and vegetables but also pork, chicken and dairy– that were intended for restaurant and institutional use, much of which would spoil if a quick way was not found to use it. Increasing SNAP benefits would not address the problem of figuring out how to distribute food that was intended for restaurants and institutions. As I understand it many of the farmers and distributors engaged in that business do not have any relationship with grocery store distributional channels.
2. The SNAP program requires applications and documentation before someone is approved for the program. That takes time. The box program has moved food fairly quickly.
3. As far as I know, food banks do not ask people if they are low income. So people who are suddenly low income can go there and get food, which they cannot do so quickly through the SNAP program.
4. It would seem to me the food box program was a short term solution, although I don’t know what the farmers and distributors that have been selling to the restaurants and institutions are supposed to do if that demand does not return quickly. Should they go out of business or should some system be found to keep them in business until demand picks up? Would that mean continuing the food box program?

These are worth considering.  But the real question, it seems to me, is how to develop a food assistance system that helps people who need food in a more efficient way, while helping farmers find outlets for what they produce that guarantee them a decent living.  We all need to be working on that.

A reader in Australia writes that she “just came upon a doozy of an industry-funded paper.”

Title: Sales of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Australia: A Trend Analysis from 1997 to 2018, by William S. Shrapnel and Belinda E. Butcher.  Nutrients 2020, 12, 1016; doi:10.3390/nu12041016.

Conclusion: Major, long-term shifts are occurring in the market for non-alcoholic, water-based beverages in Australia, notably a fall in per capita volume sales of SSBs and an increase in volume sales of water. Both trends are consistent with public health nutrition strategies for obesity prevention and suggest that the downward trend in the percentage of dietary energy from added sugars in the Australian diet may be continuing.

Funding and Conflicts of Interest: This analysis was funded by an unrestricted grant from The Australian Beverages Council Ltd. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

So what’s the problem here (besides the usual questions about the accuracy of the “no role” statement)?

The clue comes from an article in Food Navigator Asia: “Not a taxing question: Australian sugar sweetened beverage consumption slumps as obesity rates continue to soar.”

The article quotes a representative of the Beverage Council:

Obesity is multi-factorial, the reason why people become overweight and then obese, is because of the lack of physical activity, a sedentary lifestyle, and also poor diet…a sugar tax alone would not reduce the obesity rates in the country, and was a complex challenge for the government to overcome.  The beverage industry is against a sugar tax, and SSB tax.  The evidence and science behind the effectiveness of a sugar tax is weak.

Comment: The point of this study is to produce evidence against the value of soda or sugar taxes, even though sodas are still the largest source of sugars in Australian diets, and taxes have been shown to reduce consumption in other countries.  When it comes to sugary drinks, less is better.

Just for fun, here’s Healthy Food America’s 2019 map of countries with soda taxes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pointed out how the higher risk of complications and death among members of minority groups.  The reasons are fairly well established.  Members of minority groups are more likely to:

• Be overweight
• Have diet-related risk factors: hypertension, type-2 diabetes, multiple metabolic problens
• Live in high-pollution areas
• Have asthma
• Suffer from the daily stress of discrimination
• Lack sick leave benefits
• Have poor health care

The .latest report from Rudd Center on Food and Obesity Policy, Sugary Drinks FACTS 2020, highlights how sellers of sugary drinks target their products to minority populations.  The press release says that the report found:

• In 2018, companies spent $84 million to advertise regular soda, sports drinks, and energy drinks on Spanish-language TV, an increase of 8% versus 2013 and 80% versus 2010.
• Sports drink brands disproportionately advertised on Spanish-language TV, dedicating 21% of their TV advertising budgets to Spanish-language TV, compared to 10% on average for all sugary drinks.
• Compared to White children and teens, Black children saw 2.1 times as many sugary drink ads and Black teens saw 2.3 times as many. Black youth exposure was particularly high for sports drinks, regular soda, and energy drinks.

Click here for the full report. 

• Sugary Drink FACTS 2020 Supplement: Examples of social media campaigns targeted to teens and Hispanic and Black youth
• Sugary Drink FACTS 2020 Appendix Tables
• Sugary Drink FACTS 2020 report summary

The report’s main finding:

CNN has an excellent account of this, in which I am quoted.

Experts say soda companies have also taken a page out of the tobacco industry’s marketing playbook, by providing funding for many Black communities and endeavors “in ways that don’t look like advertising, like funding playgrounds in minority neighborhoods, minority community groups, and sponsorship of Black and Hispanic sports figures,” said Marion Nestle, who also authored “Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics.”  “These work,” Nestle said. “Minority kids identify soda brands with sports figures, and minority community groups find it hard to oppose soda company marketing when the companies have been so generous.”

“The great irony of Ramon Laguarta’s promises to counter PepsiCo’s conscious or unconscious racist practices in the company, its business, and communities is that none of them addresses targeted marketing,” said Nestle.

“The best thing Pepsi could do to improve the health of its customers would be to stop advertising and marketing to children and teenagers, especially those of color,” Nestle added.

The USDA says 20 million food boxes have been delivered to food banks through the Farmers-to-Families program, which aimed to buy food from farms that had no way of selling what they produced, package it in boxes, and deliver them to food banks.  The announcement comes with a very long list of testimonials, and a video that you can watch here.

The USDA’s website about this is here.  The program is described here.

Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic.  The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition says that the food box program is not exactly doing much for small farms.

Most of the news coverage on the CFAP Food Box Program, and the Congressional attention that follows, has focused on large contracts awarded to companies without much experience in the distribution of specialty crops. This also caused the larger specialty crop industry to raise concerns about the early shortcomings of the program.

What has received much less attention has been how the program has or has not benefited local and regional food producers despite the fact that the program was clearly intended to support these farmers. Grant applicants were required to discuss how their proposed project supports the mission of facilitating agricultural markets and how they “intend to engage small farmers (e.g those farms servicing local and region interests and farmers markets).”

And Chuck Abbott, of FERN’s Ag Insider, says USDA offers few yardsticks for measuring its food-box program.

For USDA, the most important number in its food-box giveaway program is how many boxes are donated — 18.4 million as of Friday, according to a tally on the homepage of the agency that runs the program. Officials declined to provide other details, such as the average cost of the boxes or how long the $3-billion initiative will be in operation.

I would like to know:

• What’s in the boxes?
• What food?  How much food?
• What is its quality?
• How are food banks handling this?
• Are recipients happy with it?
• Is the program helping small farmers stay in business?

Does anyone know?  I haven’t seen answers to these questions yet.

The meat industry is in deep trouble.  Even industry insiders are taking it to task.

I could hardly believe this piece in Forbes by Hank Cardello.  It sounds just like something I would write.

3 Ways To Fix The Meat Industry’s Empathy Problem

The meat industry is antithetical to everything Millennials value. Their treatment of employees runs counter to Millennials’ No. 2 value: empathy, according to a Gallup report. Their role in global warming is antithetical to Millennials’ concern for the environment. Their price-fixing is antithetical to Millennials’ demand for transparency and decency. Their role in promoting products increasingly linked to global warming and poor health is antithetical to the priorities of younger workers, who say they want to work for a company with a purpose.

Here’s progress, and about time too.  This long called for, and long overdue decision has been covered by CNN (6/17), New York Times (6/17), Food Dive (6/17), USA Today (6/18), and Reuters (6/18).

CPG firms review, overhaul black brand mascots:  Following Quaker Oat’s decision to rebrand its Aunt Jemima line, the parent companies of brands Uncle Ben’s, Mrs. Butterworth’s and Cream of Wheat — all of which have black mascots — have plans to change or review the brands’ logos and packaging. “[W]e are committed to evaluating our packaging and will proactively take steps to ensure that we and our brands do not inadvertently contribute to systemic racism,” B&G Foods said about Cream of Wheat’s chef image in a statement.

PepsiCo’s CEO promises a complete overhaul:

So today, I am announcing the next step in PepsiCo’s journey for racial equality: a more than $400 million set of initiatives over five years to lift up Black communities and increase Black representation at PepsiCo. These initiatives make up a holistic effort for PepsiCo to walk the talk of a leading corporation and help address the need for systemic change.

These changes are steps in the right direction.  To make them meaningful, companies must push for a cultural transformation and be willing to openly confront deeply embedded but sometimes unconscious attitudes and behavior.

Let’s hope these promises result in real change.

For some context, take a look at Toni Tipton-Martin’s, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cooking, and her article about the retirement of the image in Sunday’s New York Times.

And then there’s this perfect image for food politics (source unknown, alas):

Addition

A reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, writes: “The removal of the Aunt Jemima image reminds me of artist Betye Saar’s 1972 assemblage, “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima.”  I see that Betye Saar has responded: “She’s liberated! Finally at long last!”

The NCD [non-communicable disease] Alliance is a network of more than 2000 organizations in 170 countries.  Its purpose to to raise awareness of NCDs—type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and the like—among international agencies and to develop civil society capacity to prevent these conditions.

It has produced an interactive world map of examples of unhealthy industry responses to Covid-19.

Here’s an example from Jamaica.

This is an easy, one-stop shopping place to find out how food companies are exploiting Covid-19 to market products.

Make a note of it.