AUTHOR=Caraher Martin , Furey Sinéad 

TITLE=The corporate influence on food charity and aid: The “Hunger Industrial Complex” and the death of welfare

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.950955

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.950955

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=There is an existing literature on how food companies, including the unhealthy food commodity industries, influence policy through a number of approaches. Direct approaches include lobbying and funding of research. Food industry support for food charities engaged in food donations is an area that has not received attention. This is potentially another backdoor approach and one which may compromise more general public health policy. 

With rising levels of food insecurity there is pressure on the food industry to donate food to charitable enterprises such as food banks and soups kitchens, which is often encouraged by government policy such as ‘Good Samaritan legislation’. Food businesses contribute surplus food and often promote it as part of their corporate social responsibility agenda. 

This article draws on examples from the UK of how charities have linked with chocolate, fast food and soft drink companies. Examples include: ‘For every Easter egg bought on the Cadbury Worldwide Hide, Cadbury will donate an Easter egg to a food bank in our network’; an October 2021 initiative where ‘McDonald’s joins forces with FareShare to fund 1 million meals for UK families’. These relationships go beyond companies donating surplus food to food charities to encouraging consumers to buy their products with the promise that the company will contribute products to such charities or provide cash donations in return for the purchase of their product. Researchers taking money from food charities may be compromised by the direct and indirect relationships with companies.