black@pundit.DEC (DON BLACK DTN 261-2739 MS: NIO/N13 LOC: POLE C6) (06/25/85)
Here's some more food for thought about the merger between Nabisco Brands, Inc., and R.J. Reynolds Industries. In April of 1981, Nabisco, Inc., merged with Standard Brands, Inc., to form Nabisco Brands,Inc. This new company had sales of $5.5 billion in its first year. In October of 1982, R.J. Reynolds Industries acquired Heublin, Inc., liquors. Along with its cigarettes, Reynolds also produces Chun King, Del Monte, and Hawaiian Punch food products. It also owns Sea-Land Service, the world's largest container ship fleet. Heublin owns the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise chain, and produces Ortega Mexican foods and A-1 Steak Sauce, along with its liquors. Reynolds and companies now number in the top 20 industrial corporations. This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A 1980 report by the Central Intelligence Agency indicates that at the time, 75% of the world's food processing was controlled by just twenty-five multi-national corporations. Since then, a dozen or so of these firms have merged, making their control even tighter. And these mergers are financed by the likes of Goldman Sachs, & Co.; Lehman Brothers; Kuhn Loeb, Inc.; and Solomon Brothers, Inc. Substantial control over the food industry is exercised by the Rockefellers through Chase-Manhattan and Citibank, and through inter- locking directorships in Rockefeller enterprises such as Exxon. Clifton C. Garvin, Jr. (chairman of the board of Exxon) is also director of Citibank, Citicorp, and Pepsico, Inc. Exxon director Edward G. Harness is a director of Procter and Gamble, and was formerly chairman of the board. Another Exxon director, Harold A. Shaub, is director of Campbell Soup Co. Other Exxon directors include Sir Hector Laing, chairman of United Biscuits of Great Britain; William A. Andres, director of International Multifoods, Inc.; and Sir Richard Dobson, the former head of the British-American Tobacco Co. Aren't you all glad that our food supply is in the hands of such capable people? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow.... --Don Black