Speaking of food fights… I was delighted (momentarily) to read a few months ago that the European Union has fined Dole Food Co. and Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. more than $80 million for their involvement in a banana price-fixing scheme that lasted for at least two years between 2000 and 2002. Dole and Del Monte, along with Chiquita, (who successfully avoided penalties by "cooperating" with EU investigators), control over two-thirds of global trade in the world’s most popular fruit. And yet they still feel the need to fix prices.
The resemblance of this tryst to the more nefarious cartels of history; like De Beers, or the cocaine and poppy cartels of Colombia and the Golden Triangle; is uncanny. I can’t imagine a more sordid lot of pirates posing as legitimate businesses; as least OPEC is very public about its price-gouging strategies. Del Monte’s head-quarters are in George Town, Cayman Islands… so you know they’re legit. But Dole and Chiquita both changed their names, in 1991 and 1984, respectively, to distance themselves from the negative connotations associated with their previous iterations as the Standard and United Fruit companies- they’re the folks that brought you the "Banana Republics", murdered thousands of Central Americans, and, with the collusion of the CIA, over-threw democratically-elected governments… to keep us all from developing potassium deficiencies.
What is so disturbing to me about Chiquita and Dole, is not that they have successfully rebranded themselves from private empires built on tyranny, slavery and suffering into respected fruit companies associated with exotic Bond-girls wearing hats made of fruit (for the record, the Chiquita Banana logo is not, in any way, associated with Carmen Miranda); it’s that the slavery and suffering on banana plantations continues to this day. Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte are still exploiting and poisoning their marginalized and desperate laborers, crippling developing economies, and destroying some of the most delicate ecosystems on the planet…
And only when the Cartel manipulates consumer prices do government regulators step in to defend "the little guys" against corporate tyranny.
Great post. I’ve been catching up on my reading about the fruit wars in Central America so I hope you’ll post more about this. It’s a blind-spot in my knowledge of food history. THANK you for contributing and I do hope there’s more.
The plantation culture traditionally established in Central American region grows mainly banana and sugar cane, recently pineapple. It’s one of the worst working conditions you could possibly think of, including:
Dole and Chiquita are adversaries worth taking down, if any. I look to small farmers to outcompete them, or people demanding better produce.
 -Eddie Miller
Boston University ’10
Organic agriculture and global development. http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/