Large-scale food and beverage companies, engaged in processing and manufacturing raw agricultural materials for profit in global markets, are not just another step in the food system path. Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment strongly believes they play an outsized role in driving disparities in human health and environmental sustainability.
Line graphic with four points: production, processing, aggregation/distribution, and market/consumers.
Food processing companies are bottlenecks in the global food system, exerting undue influence over both what and how much is produced by farmers upstream as well as what and how much is eaten by consumers downstream.