FY 2021
Food
Your support clears the way for food policies that prioritize people, not profits
Everyone should have access to healthy food, no matter where they live, what they look like, or how much money they have. But a handful of corporations use their enormous influence to shape food and nutrition policies, growing their profit at the expense of people’s health and well-being. This year, with our allies, we challenged Big Food and Big Soda corporations for their influence over public policy, their fueling of racial injustices, and their marketing of unhealthy products like sugary drinks to children and youth, especially from Black and Indigenous communities. We compelled Coca-Cola to cut ties with a shadowy industry group, and we exposed its support of politicians seeking to obstruct voting rights.
Your take:
“To transform our food systems so that they nourish all people and protect our precious ecosystems, we must take on the global corporations at the heart of our dominant food systems’ destructiveness. This has never been clearer to me than it is today. For more than 40 years, Corporate Accountability has been a leading voice challenging corporate power, exposing corporate spin, and tackling corporate encroachment on our public institutions. I am consistently inspired by the moral compass guiding the organization’s campaigns to expose the toxic influence of Big Food and Big Soda and the deep research on which their campaigns are always grounded.”
Anna Lappe, co-founder of Real Food Media and Director of the Food Sovereignty Fund of the Panta Rhea Foundation
“The New Georgia Project Action Fund knows that enacting change calls for direct action. That’s why we are proud to have spoken truth to power at the Coca-Cola’s Shareholder’s meeting after they refused to denounce legislation which continues to undermine the voting power of Black, brown, young and LGBTQ+ voters. Under this pressure, Coke reversed course and publicly acknowledged restrictive voting laws as “unacceptable.” Fighting voter suppression, dismantling systemic racism, and protecting public health requires that we keep corporate power in check.”
Nsé Ufot, Chief Executive Officer, the New Georgia Project and the New Georgia Project Action Fund
Bringing direct pressure to bear on Coke
From challenging Coca-Cola’s abuse of community water rights in India to demanding the corporation come clean about the source of its bottled water, Corporate Accountability has had a long history of exposing the soda giant’s malfeasance. Coke (not to mention other Big Food and Big Soda corporations) regularly engages two major strategies to advance its harmful agenda: leaning on industry trade groups to do its dirty work and funneling money to politicians. And this year, with our allies, we brought direct pressure to bear on Coke in both those areas. We compelled the corporation to cut ties with a shadowy industry group that it has leveraged for decades to influence policies globally, and we exposed its support of politicians seeking to obstruct voting rights.
As you may remember, we published an exposé last year on one of the world’s the most shadowy and powerful food industry front groups: the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). Founded by a former Coke executive decades ago, ILSI has long pushed harmful policy measures and thwarted progress on food policy around the globe.
But thanks to your support, Coke can no longer hide behind ILSI. Following the release of the exposé, people and organizations around the country called on Coke and other corporations to cut ties with this industry group. And early in 2021 Coke seemingly bowed to the pressure—it ended its membership with ILSI.
We continued to keep the heat on Coke this spring. We partnered with the New Georgia Project and Feed the Truth to connect the dots between the corporation’s funding of politicians behind the voter suppression laws and its fueling of diet-related diseases, especially in Black and Indigenous communities. See below for more on this impact.
Together with our allies and with your support, we are challenging the many ways that corporations like Coca-Cola wield power to reap profits at the expense of the health and well-being of people.
More impact:
Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, introduced our shareholders’ resolution challenging Coca-Cola’s junk science at the corporation’s annual shareholders’ meeting. Her powerful statement called out the corporation for its role in fueling racial disparities in diet-related diseases and undermining democracy in states like Georgia. This resolution got the highest level of support yet, representing approximately 400 million shares.
Corporate Accountability and our allies—experts and organizers in public health—demanded PepsiCo account for the harmful impact of its marketing of unhealthy products to Black and brown children, as well as the corporation’s interference in policymaking and politics. Watch Dr. Yolandra Hancock’s statement at the Pepsi shareholders’ meeting.
Explore More:
You demand Big Polluters pay up
People are demanding Big Polluters be held accountable for how they have knowingly fueled this catastrophe, and you have helped make this shift possible.
You help protect the human right to water
Communities around the world came together during the COVID-19 pandemic to demand safe water for all people—no matter their income, neighborhood, or race.
You help expose Big Tobacco’s underhanded and racist tactics, bring global leaders together
Our longest-running campaign continues to advance innovative corporate accountability strategies.
