The Rise of the French Fry Cartel
The Rise of the French Fry Cartel
After decades of consolidation, just four firms now control at least 97 percent of the $68 billion frozen potato market. A new spate of antitrust lawsuits accuses them of brazen price-fixing.
Big Potato.
Cartel? At least we’re being honest about US companies now.
French fries are a food that I won't be sad for losing from my life. They are unhealthy and always the thrifty side dish option, fried in horrible oils reused to oblivion. They are a staple only because they are quick to make with the right equipment and in large quantities on demand. Aka, they are fast food. And fast food in the US is arguably a cartel. Thankfully, I'm not in the US, I'm in Greece, with a very different fast food market, culinary tradition, and definition for a fried potato. If they want to corner the market on McDonald's style fries, fine I don't care. I enjoy my soft potato fries, gnocchi, my jacket potatoes, my rice better anyway.
What an absolutely shallow take. This isn't about French fries or fast food. This is about end stage capitalism and how corporations are just nakedly colluding with each other.
This is why the cost of just about everything is increasing faster than inflation.
/doubt
Of all the foods to try to corner the market in, frozen potato strips seems so unlikely and pointless. You can make them at home easily enough with a fry cutter mandolin
It's really trivial to bake your own bread (especially given that so many kitchens have ovens) and yet most people still buy it from bakeries.
French fries, made at home, are also difficult to bake right to a crisp - it requires thoroughly oiling them and, even if you do so, I swear there's something fancy frozen chips use to get some crisping without causing clumping.
Correct! There are tricks which make a huge difference.
Did you read the article? This is not about consumers, but professionals making french fries all day. It's really trivial to make "homemade" fries, and if the cost is significantly lower, many businesses will do it.
It's not at all comparable to bread baking, because with fries you basically only add a couple extra steps, while with bread you have to make ALL the steps, and it's a way longer process that takes equipment space and time to do.
There's a reason bread cost about 4-5 times as much as french fries, while the ingredients cost about the same.
IDK why you are downvoted, my first thought was that a company tried the same here in Denmark with fried onions.
It's idiocy to try to monopolize a market, with very low threshold for entry. If their cartel manages to increase prices to have higher profits than they should, it's very easy for a competitor to step in.
They may have a sort of cartel, but they are pretty limited in how far they can go with that. What they can do, is avoid bankrupting each other with constant price wars.