SubscribePound Wise, Penny Foolish
Via The Ethicurean:
Eric Schlosser, of Fast Food Nation fame, has an article in today’s NY Times called Penny Foolish about the refusal of Burger King to pay an extra penny per pound for tomatoes.
I can’t boycott Burger King because, well, I don’t eat at Burger King. I do think it’s rather illustrative of the type of ethics that fast food companies have though. But check this out:
Three private equity firms — Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners — control most of Burger King’s stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its Burger King investment within three years.
Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million — more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain.
Ok, so we’re talking about 1 penny per pound. One shiny cent per pound of tomatoes. Given that a Whopper or the largest salad available at Burger King doesn’t contain a full pound of tomatoes, it shouldn’t even need to drive up prices. Keep things like this in mind the next time you pull into a burger joint.
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Filed in Restaurants and Fast Food 2 Comments so far
Jeff on 30 Nov 2007 at 1:08 pm #
Excellent article and I wish I could boycott Burger King as well, but, alas, like you, I don’t eat there.
However it’s unfair to lump them in with all other burger joints. Both Yum (owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and others) and McDonald’s agreed years ago to the increase. BK is the only cheap-bastard holdout.
Scott Kustes on 30 Nov 2007 at 2:16 pm #
It is true that the others agreed to it Jeff, but here’s a line that makes me think they’ve said “Well, if BK can do it, so can we.”
“and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald’s.”
Perhaps I’m reading it incorrectly or Mr. Schlosser didn’t intend it to sound that way, but it sounds like Yum and McD’s growers have also pulled out.
Cheers
Scott