Rising Costs At The Grocery? Legacy Media Would Have You To Believe There’s Nothing To Be Done But There’s One Simple Solution
Despite fear-mongering from the usual suspects in legacy media, claims that the consumer price index being the cause of rising grocery prices are simply not conducive with reality. NBC News writes “shoppers had better start budgeting more for their groceries” and explained the rising prices of food are due to “pandemic stockpiling” and supply-chain disruptions from COVID-19.
NBC News also points out that the rising prices in something considered a “necessity” – food – comes during a time when more than 9 million people are unemployed. Of course, they also pass the blame off on soaring gas prices and inefficient transportation costs.
With the narrow view that NBC News wants you to apply to this situation, all of the observable aspects are not being accounted for. For instance, if we take a look at 5 of the top corporations that distribute food across North America: Kraft-Heinz, Conagra, General Mills, Nestle, and Tyson – you can see things begin to not add up. Both the sheer scope of their variety in product and their profit margins doesn’t back what NBC News is claiming.
Starting off, we’ll take a look at Kraft-Heinz. Of the most notable of their brands is A1 steak sauce, Bagel Bites, Breakstones cottage cheese, Capri Sun, Crystal Light, Classico pasta sauce, Claussen pickles, Cool Whip, Corn Nuts, Country Time drink mixes, Delimex, Gevalia coffee, Heinz condiments, Jell-O, Jet-Puffed marshmallows, Kool-Aid, Kraft, Lunchables, Maxwell House, Miracle Whip, Ore-Ida, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia dairy products, Planters, Shake N’ Bake, Stove Top, Velveeta, Smart Ones, and Wylers food and beverages.
Bearing in mind, this is only a handful of the brands they own – not even half of them. So among these products, they still have many more they make money from. Not even mentioning, Kraft-Heinz is majority-owned by Berkshire Hathaway – which is owned by Warren Buffet. From 2019 to early 2021, their profit margins were in the green.
Conagra owns many different brands as well. Among them are Boomchickapop snacks, Andy Capp’s, Armour meats, Aunt Jemima, Banquet, Bertolli, Birds Eye, Birds Eye Voila, Blue Bonnet, Chef Boyardee, Duncan Hines, Earth Balance, Glutino, Healthy Choice, Hungry-Man, Hunt’s pasta sauces, Kid Cuisine, La Choy, Manwich, Marie Callenders, Mrs. Butterworth’s, Tennessee Pride, Open Pit barbeque sauces, Orville Redenbachers, P.F. Chang’s Home Menu, Pam, Parkay, Peter Pan peanut butter, Reddi-wip, Ro*Tel, Slim Jim, Smart Balance, Swiss Miss, Van Camp’s, Vlasic, and Wish-Bone.
Again, these aren’t even a fourth of all of the brands owned by Conagra. From 2019 to early 2021, their profit margins were in the green.
General Mills also has a robust arsenal of products sold across grocery chains in America. Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Bugles, Cascadian Farms, Cheerios, Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, Fiber One, Gardetto’s, Go-Gurt, Gold Medal, Golden Grahams, Green Giant, Haagen-Dazs, Hamburger Helper, Kix, Lucky Charms, Nature Valley, Old El Paso, Pillsbury, Progresso, Reese’s Puffs, Toaster Scrambles and Toaster Strudels, Totino’s, Total, Trix, Wheaties, and Yoplait.
From 2019 to early 2021, their profit margins were in the green.
Next, we have Nestlé. Acqua Panna, Alpo, Beggin Strips, Beneful, Beyond, Carnation, Chameleon Cold Brew, Coffee-Mate, Deer Park, DiGiorno, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Gerber, Hot Pockets, Ice Mountain, Jenny Craig, Lean Cuisine, Juicy Juice, Lean Pockets, Nescafé, Nespresso, Nesquik, Nestea, Perrier, Pioneer Woman, Poland Spring, Purina, Stouffer’s, Taster’s Choice, Tidy Cats, Tombstone, and Toll House are a mere handful of their products. From 2019 to early 2021, their profit margins were in the green.
Finally, Tyson Foods. They own Ballpark meats, Bosco’s snacks, Hillshire meats, Jamwich, Jimmy Dean, Landshire, Nudges, Open Prairie, Sara Lee, Star Ranch, State Fair, Steak Eze, Supreme Tenders, Tastemakers, Top Chews, Tyson, and Wunderbar. From 2019 to early 2021, their profit margins were in the green.
After digesting this information, simply ask yourself if you believe these multi-billion dollar corporations have to offset costs onto consumers in order to protect profits. Instead of offloading the burden onto consumers – in a time when 9 million are unemployed – perhaps the cost could be shaved off of the grossly and excessively high salaries they dole out to their CEOs.
Kraft-Heinz CEO, Miguel Patricio is paid $500 thousand. Conagra CEO, Sean Connolly is paid $1 million. General Mills CEO, Jeff Harmening is paid $1 million. Nestlé CEO, Ulf Schneider is paid $10 million. Tyson Foods CEO, Donnie D. King is paid $6 million.
Sure, though, let NBC News lead you to believe that the reason food prices are increasing is because of the “consumer price index”. It’s all illusory, so don’t pay any attention to the man behind the curtain or you might break free of the proverbial allegory of the cave corporate America is keeping the majority of us in.