Two investigative reports worth reading: Eggs and Meat
Washington Post: As egg prices soared at the supermarket, so did producer profits: A USDA program doled out hundreds of millions in relief payments to big egg companies, even as the largest earned record profits.
On Tuesday, the nation’s largest egg producer, Mississippi-based Cal-Maine, announced quarterly profits of $509 million, more than three times what it made in the same period a year ago. It caps three years of extraordinary earnings, which have surged since the avian flu outbreak began in 2022.
By wiping out millions of laying hens, the avian flu has slowed egg production for many companies. But the outbreak also has driven up prices enough for some companies to recoup losses and, for Cal-Maine, to record exceptional profits….At the same time, Cal-Maine and other large egg companies have received tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has been doling out relief payments to help egg companies restock after the virus strikes.
Unfork the Food System: Meat Industry’s PR Campaign Exposed: Undermining Climate-Friendly Diets: How EAT-Lancet Came Under Fire: The Meat Lobby’s Coordinated Smear Campaign.
In 2019, the EAT-Lancet Commission released a groundbreaking report advocating for a global shift towards a “planetary health diet”—a balanced, predominantly plant-based diet aimed at promoting human health and environmental sustainability…In our disinformation report from 2024, authored by Nicholas Carter, the Freedom Food Alliance unpacked the #YesToMeat campaign—a slick PR effort that masked corporate interests behind the guise of consumer choice and cultural pride. Our report revealed how front groups and influencer partnerships were used to normalize the overconsumption of meat while undermining credible science on sustainable diets…Fast-forward to today. A recent investigation by DeSmog and The Guardian has uncovered that the intense backlash against the EAT-Lancet report was not as organic as many had thought. Instead, it was significantly fueled by a coordinated public relations campaign orchestrated by the meat and dairy industry.
DeSmog: Revealed: Meat Industry Behind Attacks on Flagship Climate-Friendly Diet Report: A new document shows that vested interests were behind a “mud slinging” PR campaign to discredit the 2019 EAT-Lancet study.
A document seen by DeSmog appears to show the results of a campaign by the consultancy Red Flag, which catalogues the scale of the backlash to the [EAT-Lancet] report. The document indicates that Red Flag briefed journalists, think tanks, and social media influencers to frame the peer-reviewed research as “radical”, “out of touch” and “hypocritical”…Based on DeSmog’s review of the document, Red Flag’s attack campaign appears to have been conducted on behalf of the Animal Agriculture Alliance (AAA), a meat and dairy industry coalition that was set up to protect the sector against “emerging threats”. The AAA counts representatives from Cargill and Smithfield Foods – two of the world’s five largest meat companies – on its board.
Comment: Let me restate the obvious: food companies are not public health or social service agencies; they are businesses with stockholders to please. They will take advantage of any profitable opportunity, and oppose anything that threatens profits. The EAT-Lancet initiative is a threat to meat industry profits. We would not know how the meat industry fights back were it not for the work of investigative reporters. They deserve our thanks.
