BaronsBarons

"Barons is the story of seven titans of the food industry, their rise to power, and the consequences for eaters, communities, and democrary itself. Readers will meet a secretive German family that took over the global coffee business in less than a decade, relying on wealth traced back to the Nazis to gobble up countless independent roasters. They will visit the Disneyland of agriculture, where school children ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tens of thousands of cows that never see the light of day. An they will learn that in the food business, crime really does pay--especially when you can bribe and then double-cross the president of Brazil. The tycoons profiled in these pages are hardly unique: many other companies have manipulated our lax laws and failed policies for their own benefit, to the detriment of the people they claim to nourish. Barons paints a stark portrait of corporate consolidation, but it also shows we can choose a different path. A fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry is possible--if we take back power from the barons who have robbed us of it."--Book jacket flap.