I stood in the supermarket aisles, kind of by myself for a bit longer than I had even realized. There was a full shelf of produce, different colors, different labels, different packages. A look of plenty, it's an illusion of variety from different sources from all around the world and from different organizations.
Most people don't even bother to ask and that's why they don't even know that in total, about ten companies own most of these brands. You could easily verify that by googling which main conglomerate owns your favorite snack or beverage, you'd be surprised to see it might just be the same company right now. Whatever you pick up is money spent on a product at the top of a long, long chain of companies.
It was very sad to discover that reality we live in. I am not angry, it feels like the moment you find out your private conversation isn't as private as you thought.
The prices, the ingredients, which ones get pulled from the shelf and which ones stay on for an indefinite period of time, all of those are determined by some company far from the shelves. Yes, there are small producers who exist, but the space they have to sell their products is often small, and they often have to compete with much larger companies.
But to be frank, I'm still not sure what I can do with that information or what I can do to make that information useful on an everyday basis because you don't really have much of a choice whether it's the same company giving you products and you think you're diversifying when you're really not
Supporting local is the right thing to do but local isn't always an option or an option within budget.
So you're still standing in the aisle, looking at two different large companies, and trying to make the best choice. Regardless of how brightly colored the packages may be or how full the aisle might be, it doesn't matter if there's truly an abundance of options out there.