How Nestle and Unilever Profit Off Third World Poverty

The Business of Poverty and Food Companies

DW (2018)

Film Review

With the growing rejection of processed food by the industrial North, corporate food producers are aggressively targeting the third world. It’s a cynical strategy they learned from tobacco companies, after the anti-smoking movement significantly reduced cigarette purchases in developed countries. The result: a massive increase in obesity and diabetes in the countries targeted.

The filmmakers offer the example of Nestle’s campaign in Sao Paolo favelas to sell sugar-laden dairy products and Unilever’s campaign to sell white bread, margarine and “stock cubes” in Nairobi. In both cities, these processed foods are promoted as “status” and “health foods.” The consumers targeted often have no formal education and no access to health information other than TV ads. As slum dwellers, they also have virtually no access to natural or traditional foods.

In Sao Paolo, Nestle recruits poor women to sell their products door-to-door. The company compels them to sign binding contracts that force them to take all the financial risk. In addition to pre-purchasing the product (whether they sell it or not), they’re also required to give customers one month free credit. Many never pay for their purchases.

Unilever has also trained dozens of Nairobi women to become door-to-door vendors but has yet to follow through with full implementation. In Kenyan slums, families rely on convenience stores for small packages of junk food – which is all they can afford on their limited wages.

Nutritionists and other health workers in both cities are fighting an uphill battle to persuade the urban poor to return to more healthy traditional foods. An extremely difficult task, owing to the wholesale displacement (forced on developing countries by the IMF and “free trade” treaties) of domestic agriculture with export crops. Activists’ preferred tactic is to involve low income slum dwellers in urban garden projects that produce traditional foods.

Banned in Brazil

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

Directed by Jason Kohn (2007)

Film Review

Maori TV showed this 2007 documentary two nights ago – a timely choice in view of Brazilian legislative corruption that culminated in the illegal impeachment of democratically elected president Dilma Rousseff two months ago.

Send a Bullet is a horrifying account of class warfare, extreme wealth disparity and extreme violence in Sao Palo Brazil. The film has been banned in Brazil.

According to the filmmakers Sao Paulo, with a population of 20 million, experiences one kidnapping every single day. Ruthless outlaws routinely cut off ears and fingers to send with their ransom demands. The documentary profiles a Brazilian plastic surgeon who makes his living reattaching the severed ears of kidnap victims.

Because the government offers virtually no protection against kidnapping, wealthy Sao Paulo residents hire bodyguards, drive bullet proof cars and take special classes to protect themselves from kidnapping. Many rely on helicopters as the only safe method of transport.

The film also explores how organized crime has deeply infiltrated the Brazilian government, in large part because serving officials are exempt from prosecution in civilian courts.

Although the documentary is nine years old, a quick search of the Internet suggests that Brazil’s kidnapping epidemic persists unabated. In June gunmen kidnapped a New Zealand Jiu-Jitsu champion in the lead-up to the Olympics and in August the mother-in-law of the head of Formula One auto racing. Visitors to Brazil should consult the Globe Media website on the best way to protect themselves against kidnapping: Safety in Brazil

The only complete subtitled version of Send a Bullet I could find is at the Maori TV website: Send a Bullet