Hungry for power: financialization and the concentration of corporate control in the global food system

Keenan, Liam; Monteath, Timothy; Wójcik, Dariusz

Abstract

The global food system is in crisis. Climate change, ecological degradation, and economic and military conflict have exposed significant vulnerabilities in how the world produces, distributes, and consumes food. While governments aim to address these intersecting crises, they typically overlook another critical factor - the unprecedented concentration of corporate control in the global food system driven by contemporary processes of financialization. The incursion of new financial actors and imperatives have encouraged food firms to implement mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to improve financial performance, generate shareholder value, and capture market share. This has resulted in record levels of concentration, with more power controlled by fewer firms. Surprisingly, there is little empirical detail concerning the uneven pace, scale, and geographies of this concentration. Our article develops a novel M&A-based approach to investigate the concentration of power and corporate control throughout the global food system. Drawing from a sample of 4449 M&A deals throughout 2001-20, we reveal the uneven geographical and sectoral characteristics of food systems concentration, showing that the majority of M&A deals are horizontal (within the same sub-sector) and domestic (within the same country). These findings allow us to reflect on when, where, and why corporate control and decision-making power are shifting between different actors and geographies throughout the global food system, ultimately underscoring the importance of bringing finance and financialization into closer dialogue with food systems research.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 8, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Nov 18, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-12
• Deposit Date: Nov 8, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 27, 2023
• Journal: Geoforum
• Print ISSN: 0016-7185
• Electronic ISSN: 1872-9398
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 147
• Article Number: 103909
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103909
• Keywords: Food; Food Systems; Financialization; Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As)
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/27079071
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/geoforum
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Hungry for power: financialization and the concentration of corporate control in the global food system; Journal Title: Geoforum; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103909; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.