Does corporate social responsibility pay off for corporations? Indeed it does. Corporate money buys silence, if nothing else.
William Neuman of the New York Times provides a perfect example of how corporate sponsorship gets precisely what it is intended to do.
In this particular case:
The corporations are soda companies, Coke and Pepsi.
The social responsibility is donations of millions of dollars to a good cause.
The cause is Save the Children, a group devoted to child health and development projects internationally and domestically.
The intention? Get Save the Children to stop advocating in favor of soda taxes.
Not long ago, Save the Children was a strong advocate for soda taxes. Now it is not. How come? The group’s website explains:
about a minute ago we said, Corporate donors support us but do not pressure us. Our focus is children not soda tax policy. Back to saving more children now.
The Times, however, suggests a different explanation:
executives at Save the Children were seeking a major grant from Coca-Cola to help finance the health and education programs that the charity conducts here and abroad, including its work on childhood obesity.The talks with Coke are still going on. But the soda tax work has been stopped….In interviews this month, Carolyn Miles, chief operating officer of Save the Children, said there was no connection between the group’s about-face on soda taxes and the discussions with Coke. A $5 million grant from PepsiCo also had no influence on the decision, she said. Both companies fiercely oppose soda taxes.
A mere coincidence? I don’t think so. This is a clear win for soda companies, just as was Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the educational activities of the American Academy of Family Physicians. You can bet those activities do not involve telling parents not to give sodas to their kids.
Is this a win for Save the Children? The Times reports that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funds some of the group’s anti-obesity initiatives, is disappointed. Evidently, its $3.5 million donation wasn’t enough to convince the group to continue its anti-soda activities.
In the meantime, soda taxes continue to stay on the radar as a weight control strategy. A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that soda taxes could lead to a small but potentially significant weight loss.
According to FoodNavigator’s report about the study,the authors say that applying such taxes throughout the United States could generate a billion dollars or more. It quotes lead researcher Eric Finkelstein: “Although small, given the rising trend in obesity rates, especially among youth, any strategy that shows even modest weight loss should be considered.”
This kind of study is a challenge to soda companies. Watch Coke and Pepsi continue donations to charitable and health groups and watch those groups say not one word about the contribution of sodas to obesity. Cigarettes, anyone?
In the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Derek Yach and his colleagues at PepsiCo in Purchase, NY, say yes, it can, in answer to the question they pose in their article, “Can the food industry help tackle the growing global burden of undernutrition?”
If we are to successfully combat global undernutrition, efforts must be sustained by multiple stakeholders from various sectors. We believe that trust is built through industry’s demonstration of practical actions that improve health, and recognition of these actions by governments and nongovernmental organizations. Only through new and innovative public–private sector partnerships can we truly make a difference.
Three international public health leaders counter with no, it can’t, in an article entitled “The snack attack.” They point to irreconcilable differences between the the goals of private industry and public health:
The problem lies with food, drink, and associated companies whose profits depend on products that damage public health and that also have damaging social, economic, and environmental impacts. These most of all include transnational companies, of which PepsiCo is one. To succeed, big business must sustain and increase annual turnover, profit, and share price…We suggest that public health professionals see papers such as those of Yach et al. as part of the marketing strategies of transnational food and drink companies…The privatization of public health does not work.
This argument reminds me of the editorial that David Ludwig and I wrote for JAMA late in 2008: “Can the food industry play a constructive role in the obesity epidemic?” We concluded:
With respect to obesity, the food industry has acted at times constructively, at times outrageously. But inferences from any one action miss a fundamental point: in a market-driven economy, industry tends to act opportunistically in the interests of maximizing profit. Problems arise when society fails to perceive this situation accurately.
While visionary CEOs and enlightened food company cultures may exist, society cannot depend on them to address obesity voluntarily, any more than it can base national strategies to reduce highway fatalities and global warming solely on the goodwill of the automobile industry. Rather, appropriate checks and balances are needed to align the financial interests of the food industry with the goals of public health.
PepsiCo owns Pepsi Cola, of course, but also Gatorade, Frito-Lay snacks, and Aquafina water, among many other brands. According to Advertising Age (June 22, 2009), PepsiCo earned $43 billion in worldwide sales in 2008. Its product-specific advertising expenditures in 2008, just for “measured media” (meaning run through advertising agencies) were, for example:
$162 million for Gatorade
$145 million for Pepsi Cola
$27 million for Tostitos
$14 million for Doritos
$11 million for Fritos.
These figures, staggering as they may be, do not include the amounts Pepsi spends on lobbying, supporting the American Beverage Association’s efforts to fight soda taxes, funding medical research at Yale, or marketing to children and adults in India and other developing countries, as previously discussed on this site.
Is corporate “social responsibility” really responsible? Or is it just marketing? And what should be the checks and balances? You decide.
Added April 17: This comes from a former employee of PepsiCo who asks that I post this anonymously:
I think you probably know that the “marketing dollars,” the share (ads/direct marketing), of companies like Pepsico are only a fraction of what are their actually marketing/promotions budgets. Many years ago, PepsiCo made a conscious effort to redefine/shift budgets to what is called promotional spending from traditional marketing spending. In doing so though, they keep the control and allocation of the funds in the hands of the marketing teams.
For Pepsi I know that the $145 million you mention is probably only 25% of what Pepsi “internally” considers consumer marketing spending. For example, direct to retails “incentive” bonus funds are given for moving volume — those funds are almost entirely funneled into the retails increasing consumer marketing to their direct customers. There are even examples where they can hide 10’s of millions of dollars at a time by linking event sponsorships (stadiums, etc.) to retailer agreements, thus moving those dollars to long-term “capital expenditures.” I would guess that for Pepsi alone that that $145 million could be as much as a billion a year for direct and indirect consumer marketing spending.
It is not just obscene how much gets spent to increase volume… since, for companies like PepsiCo, Coke, etc. Volume is the only way they generate higher profit to their shareholders. As you say, to expect a corporation to do things for the good of the consumer just shows a misunderstanding of their primary function when they are a for-profit entity.
Today is Easter Sunday and my monthly San Francisco Chronicle column appears today. It deals with Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity. Enjoy!
Kudos for first lady’s anti-obesity campaign
Nutrition and public policy expert Marion Nestle answers readers’ questions in this monthly column written exclusively for The Chronicle. E-mail your questions to food@sfchronicle.com, with “Marion Nestle” in the subject line.
Q:What do you think of Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity? It doesn’t say much about junk food or food marketing. Isn’t this a cop-out?
A: Skeptic that I usually am, I have nothing but applause for Michelle Obama’s decision to adopt childhood obesity as the first lady’s official cause. Lady Bird Johnson’s legacy is the flowers that bloom throughout the nation’s capital. Obama must want hers to be the flowering of better health for our nation’s children.
Yes, Obama is sensitive to political realities. She calls her campaign “Let’s Move” rather than “Let’s Eat Less Junk Food.” But its goals are crystal clear. Her campaign aims to improve food in schools and eliminate “food desert” areas without access to healthier foods.
The White House organic garden is an integral part of this effort. It is no accident that Will Allen, the charismatic head of Growing Power, the group that runs urban farms in Milwaukee and Chicago, spoke at the campaign news conference. Good food, he said, is about social justice. Every child should have access to good food.
This campaign reveals real leadership on a desperately important issue. Obama brings diverse groups to this table. She presses government agencies to take action. She exacts promises from Congress to make it easier for kids to eat low-cost meals in schools. She got her husband to create a task force to tackle ways to prevent childhood obesity.
In addition, she is asking professional and business groups to do more to help kids eat better. I’m particularly impressed by her speech to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the makers of processed foods and beverages.
With masterful tact, Obama nonetheless insisted that the association “entirely rethink the products that you’re offering, the information that you provide about these products, and how you market those products to our children.” We parents, she said, want assurance that food companies will stop “teaching kids that it’s good to have salty, sugary food and snacks every day.”
Yes, she avoids saying anything about soda taxes or other measures that might make it easier for kids and parents to make better food choices, but she is bringing childhood obesity to public attention in a fresh, new way.
Consider what her campaign is up against. Preventing obesity means eating less, often a lot less, of processed fast-food, snacks and sodas. This puts the makers of such foods in an impossible bind. Eating less is not good for business.
Short of going out of business, what can such companies do to help? They can reformulate their products to make them a little healthier. They can stop marketing their products directly to children. But this, too, is bad for business – unless it can be used for public relations.
Indeed, food and beverage companies are falling all over themselves – with much fanfare – to reformulate and to promise to restrict marketing that targets kids.
PepsiCo, the maker of soft drinks and Frito-Lay snacks, says it will stop pushing sales of full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools worldwide by 2012. The new policy is voluntary, encourages rather than mandates, and assures school districts in the United States and abroad that the company will not tell them what to supply.
It keeps vending machines in schools and allows for continued sales of branded sugary drinks such as Gatorade, juice drinks, and sweetened milk.
Kraft Foods says it will reduce the sodium in its foods by 10 percent, also by 2012. This sounds good, but has a long way to go. Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese (the SpongeBob package) contains 580 mg sodium per serving and two servings per package. A 10 percent reduction takes 1,160 mg sodium down to 1,050 mg. Salt is 40 percent sodium, so this brings salt down to 2.6 grams – about half a day’s upper limit for adults.
Still, these are steps in the right direction. Are they meaningful? You decide.
In the meantime, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group focused on the effect of money on public policy, says soda companies have increased by ten-fold the amount of money they spend on lobbying – no doubt to counter the threat of soda taxes.
What are we to make of these responses? They raise my favorite philosophical question: “Is a slightly better-for-you processed food necessarily a good choice?”
What would be better for preventing childhood obesity would be to make eating real foods the default. These, as defined by Oakland’s Prevention Institute, are relatively unprocessed foods that contain nothing artificial. And they are produced in ways that are good for farmworkers, farm animals and the environment, and are available and affordable to all.
Getting to that point requires policy as well as voluntary actions. Perhaps I’m reading too much into Obama’s campaign, but that’s how I interpret it. I’m supporting it. How about you?
Food companies interested in doing something meaningful to prevent childhood obesity are in a bind. Preventing obesity usually means staying active; eating real, not processed, foods; and reserving soft drinks and juice drinks for special occasions. None of this is good for the processed food business. At best, food and beverage companies can make their products a bit less junky and back off from marketing to children. In return, they can use the small changes they make for marketing purposes.
Perhaps as a result of Michelle Obama’s campaign (see yesterday’s post), companies are falling all over themselves – and with much fanfare – to tweak their products.
GROCERY MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION (GMA): By all reports, GMA members applauded Mrs. Obama’s remarks. GMA says its member companies are already doing what she asked.
Parke Wilde, a professor at the Tufts School of Nutrition (and food policy blogger), gave a talk at that meeting in a session dismissingly titled, “The New Foodism.” His comment:
I enjoyed hearing Michelle Obama’s talk, which was well written and delivered and fairly forceful in places. In my afternoon panel, I said grocery manufacturers would find some threatening themes in books and documentaries promoting local and organic and sustainable food, but that there is also much of substance and value. Then, Susan Borra [Edelman Public Relations] and Sally Squires [Powell Tate Public Relations] in the next session said that grocery manufacturers are frequent subjects of unfair criticism and have nothing to apologize for.
Take that, you new foodists!
MARS must think it knows more than the FDA about how to label food packages. It is developing its own version of front-of-package labels. It volunteered to put calories on the front of its candies; its multi-pack candies ay 210 calories per serving on the front. That number, however, remains on the back of the small candy store packs. Mars’ new labeling plans use the complex scheme used in Europe. I’m guessing this is a bold attempt to head off what it thinks the FDA might do – traffic lights.
KRAFTannounces that it is voluntarily reducing the sodium in its foods by 10% by 2012. Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese (SpongeBob package) has 580 mg sodium per serving and there are two servings in one of those small boxes: 1160 in total. A 10% reduction will bring it down to 1050 mg within two years. The upper recommended limit for an adult is 2300 mg/day.
PEPSICO announced “a voluntary policyto stop sales of full-sugar soft drinks to primary and secondary schools worldwide by 2012.” In a press statement, the Yale Rudd Center quotes Kelly Brownell saying that “tobacco companies were notorious for counteracting declining sales in the U.S. with exploitation of markets elsewhere, particularly in developing countries:”
it will be important to monitor whether the mere presence of beverage companies in schools increases demand for sugared beverages through branding, even if full-sugar beverages themselves are unavailable…This appears to be a good faith effort from a progressive company and I hope other beverage companies follow their lead…this announcement definitely represents progress [Note: see clarification at end of post].
According to PepsiCo, this new policy brings its international actions in line with what it is already doing in the U.S. The policy itself is voluntary, uses words like “encourage,” assures schools that the company is not telling them what to do, and won’t be fully implemented until 2010. It keeps vending machines in schools and still allows for plenty of branded sugary drinks: Gatorade, juice drinks, and sweetened milk for example.
Could any of this have anything to do with Kelly Brownell’s forceful endorsement of soda taxes?
LOBBYING: The Center for Responsive Politics says food companies spent big money on lobbying last year, and notes an enormous increase in the amount spent by the American Beverage Association (soda taxes, anyone?). For example:
How to view all this? I see the company promises as useful first steps. But how about the basic philosophical question we “new foodists” love to ask: “is a better-for-you junk food a good choice?”
OK. We have the Public Relations. Now let’s see what these companies really will do.
Addendum: I received a note clarifying Kelly Brownell’s role in the PepsiCo press release from Rebecca Gertsmark Oren,Communications Director,The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity,Yale University:
The Rudd Center did not work with PepsiCo on their initiative to stop sales of full-sugar beverages in schools worldwide, nor did we jointly issue a press release. A statement released by Kelly Brownell in response to PepsiCo’s announcement was simply intended to commend what appears to be a step in the right direction. As Kelly’s statement also mentioned, there is still plenty of work to be done. It’s also worth noting that the Rudd Center does not take funding from industry.
I had best comment on this before anyone asks. First Lady Michelle Obama wants to do something about childhood obesity and has gone into action. She announced her “Let’s Move” initiatives accompanied by much fanfare. Check out:
This is big news. I see much to admire here. The campaign focuses on kids. It is sensitive to political realities (it’s called the uncontroversial “Let’s Move,” not the inflammatory “Let’s Eat Less” or “Let’s Eat Better”). It’s brought a large number of groups on board (the New York Times account emphasizes this point). It aims to do something useful about school food and food “deserts” (areas without grocery stores). And it derives directly and explicitly from the White House garden.
I wasn’t able to watch the press conference but I hear that Will Allen was an invited speaker. Allen is the charismatic and highly effective head of Growing Power, which runs urban farms in Milwaukee and Chicago. I’m told he said:
It’s a social justice issue.
Every child in this country should have access to good food.
We have to grow farmers.
Yes!
Before the announcement, Marian Burros wrote in Politico.com about the barriers this effort will face (I’m quoted in her article). And the Los Angeles Times discussed the enormous and enormously successful lobbying effort undertaken by the soft drink industry against soda taxes. It predicted that the First Lady would not mention soda taxes when she announced her obesity campaign. Indeed, she did not.
But she did say:
The truth is our kids didn’t do this to themselves. Our kids didn’t choose to make food products with tons of fat and sugar and supersize portions, and then to have those foods marketed to them wherever they turn.
So let’s call this campaign a good first step and give it a big round of applause. I hoping everyone will give it a chance, help move it forward in every way possible, and keep fingers crossed that Mrs. Obama can pull it off.
Today’s New York Times carries this full-page ad taking on the New York City Health Department’s campaign against sodas.
Although the ad says it’s paid for by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), it doesn’t take much to guess who paid that group for it. What better way to fight back than to hide behind this particular public relations agency, which specializes in defending purveyors of unhealthful products.
What CCF is about – and which companies pay for its work – are well known (for starters, see previous post).
I’m guessing the Health Department’s campaign must be having an effect if soft drink companies are so worried that they are willing to fund a group that is so consumer unfriendly.
And thanks to Fred Tripp for giving me yet another CCF ad, this one from the September 30 A.M. New York. All of this must be making soda companies worried enough to sign on with CCF. Not a good idea.
Update October 2: I’ve just been send a link to Rachel Maddow’s comments on Rick Berman, the head of CCF. Look for “Meet Rick Berman.” It gives an overview of CCF accounts. I’m not sure when it aired.
The latest estimate from CDC on the annual cost of obesity: $147 billion. Ordinarily, I don’t take such numbers too seriously because they are based on assumptions that may or may not be correct. But this number has been challenged by so personal an attack on the new head of the CDC, Tom Friedan, that I’m thinking it should be taken seriously.
A study presented on Monday at a CDC obesity meeting determined that obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of all medical spending in the United States – an estimated $147 billion per year. The study was sanctioned by CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden, whose partiality to government-interventionist responses to public health concerns is epitomized by his quote: “Reversing obesity is not going to be done successfully with individual effort. It will be done successfully as a society.”
“The reason he hyped this study was to promote more proactive government interventions, including a three cent soda tax,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier. Dr. Ross adds, “Whenever I see numbers like this – especially when they are being promoted by someone we know is a fan of big government – I suspect that they have been altered or manipulated. Obesity is definitely a health threat, and it will definitely be a burden on our health care system. How much of a burden, we don’t know. But I don’t trust these numbers.”
Well, I don’t trust ACSH. For one thing, just try to figure out who funds them. For another, note the way ACSH invokes science to make its political agenda seem authoritative.
Whatever the real cost of obesity, its consequences will place a considerable burden on our health care system. And it will take societal responsibility as much as – or more than – individual responsibility to deal with the problem.
This page is somewhat disorganized in that I now put occasional print, audio, and video interviews, which used to be separated, together by year. The section at the very end is called Controversies; it is where I post letters from critics. Scroll down to find whatever you are looking for. Media interviews and reviews for specific books are on the page tabs for that book. For old podcasts and videos of presentations, look under Appearances and scroll down for Past Appearances; in recent years, I’ve been putting them in the chronological list here.
Interviews, media appearances, and lectures (the ones for which I have links)
Jan 17 Podcast interview with Kathlyn Carney, Connecting the Dots. Lisen on Spotify or Apple Podcast
Jan 16 LA Times guide to Japanese subscription snack boxes (Video Part I). Part II is Jan 23 (same clip?)
Jan 14 The Franklin Institute’s Ben Franklin Birthday celebration. My talk comes first. Others are from Eric Oberhalter and honoree Wendell Berry. Use passcode $H81iALu
Jan 15 Two short answers to questions at FAO’s Regional Office in Santiago, Chile. Video 1: on what governments can do about childhood obesity. Video 2: on food choices in an unhealthy food environment.
July 5 Goldberg R. Food Citizenship: Food System Advocates in an Era of Distrust. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1. Health and Nutrition: Interview with Marion Nestle:1-13. Video online
July Carter J. Interview with Marion Nestle. In: Food for Thought: Feeding the People, Protecting the Planet. Aspenia [Aspen Institute Italia] 2015;67:101-105.
July Carter J. Intervista a Marion Nestle. Come cambiano le politiche alimentary. In: Fame Zero: Rinascimento agricolo. Aspenia [Revista di Aspen Institute Italia] 2015;69:198-202.
January 10 Video interview on Star Talk, co-hosts Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Eugene Mirman, with Anthony Bourdain, about the science of cooking (sort of).
May 21 Print interview with Revital Federbush for an Israeli women’s magazine, mostly about dairy foods I’m told (it’s in Hebrew, which I cannot read, alas).
November 19 Interview with Al Jazeera for a Fault Line program on “Fast food, fat profits: obesity in America (my 10 seconds starts at about minute 15).
September 16 Speech at Columbia University conference on Global Food Systems: Their Impact on Nutrition and Health for All on panel on Advanced Technologies, Food Safety and the Role of Local and Organic Food Production (video)
November 12 Panel discussion on the farm bill, Wagner School of Public Service, Puck Building (Lafayette at Houston), 2nd floor. Here is Wild Green Yonder’s take on it.
February 6, 2008 Biologique Foods radio, two podcast interviews with TJ Harrington in Bloomington, MN, one on food politics and the other on what’s in your food.
Interview with Laura Flinders (and Arun Gupta and Peter Hoffman), Grit TV. It’s on how to eat well without going broke, and starts with a Monty Python clip on Spam 11/26/08
September 5, 2007 Scientific American Podcast with Steve Mirsky. Because I am a Paulette Goddard professor at NYU, he sends along an article he wrote about Einstein’s experience with the gorgeous movie star.
NPR Science Friday, panel on the farm bill with Michael Pollan and Sandor Ellix Katz 8/10/07
Are you responsible for your own weight? Balko R. Pro: Absolutely. Government has no business interfering with what you eat. Brownell K, Nestle M. Con: Not if Blaming the Victim Is Just an Excuse to Let Industry off the Hook. Time June 7, 2004:113.
