Big Business Conspiracies

Over the years, not only have the big food companies been involved in unethical food practices, but they have also been involved in disreputable business practices. According to this article written by Spence Cooper, top executives of many large food companies such as PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay, Kraft Foods, and SK Foods LP, have condoned racketeering, price fixing, bid rigging, and contract allocation conspiracies, among other things. Fortunately, some light has been shed on the issue in recent years, however, it is highly probable that some of the illegal practices are still being committed by these mass producing giants to this day.

"For ten years, from 1998 through 2008, a group of high-ranking corporate purchasing managers from some of the most well-known and largest food companies in North America were involved in racketeering, bribery, conspiracy, price fixing, bid rigging, and falsifying laboratory tests. The scope of corruption has reached more than 55 companies, and includes PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay, Kraft Foods, B&G Foods, the maker of Ortega Mexican foods, Safeway, and SK Foods LP, one of the nation’s largest tomato processors.
The alleged kingpin of this massive web of corruption was Frederick Scott Salyer, the founder of SK Foods. Salyer is accused of masterminding a racketeering enterprise that regularly paid bribes to the purchasing managers of Kraft Foods, Safeway, B&G Foods, and PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay. Not only it’s alleged that Salyer bribe the purchasing managers to pay above market prices on behalf of their companies, the purchasing managers knowingly paid for and supplied millions of pounds of bulk tomato paste and puree contaminated with high levels of mold (prohibited under federal law), substandard acidity levels, and date expired content."

-Chuka Obiofuma

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