Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Hi,

When I took economics, this concept described General Mills' ownership of wheat farming up the supply chain to include Wheaties.

Grub Street (link) applies the concept to the sale of Pabst Blue Ribbon by the company that owns vlasic pickles. "The food investor, who also bought Vlasic, now controls the entire hipster diet: pickles and PBR."

I better go back for a refresher course...or save some money and adjust my dietary choices.

Tim

Some writer's urge to be clever (especially if it gets to slag off hipsters) overwhelms their good sense....

I always knew Grandma was ahead of her time. Next thing you know, trendy boys in tight pants will be demanding braunschweiger sandwiches with Gulden's mustard, too.

Tim,

Hah!

That's not vertical monopolization, though, of course. I suppose it could be horizontal monopolization if you consider Hipsters a market, but they'd have to buy Starbucks first.

What I find more entertaining is that a historically anti-semitic brewery buying one of the most Jewish-themed mass consumer businesses.

Oh I don't expect Starbucks is hip; it would be much to mainstream, banal and corporate to be hip.

Oddly enough, it seems Pabst has been owned by a charity for the last 10 years. Pretty odd stuff.

With the advent of globalization and chinese everything, vertical integration seems to be largely some bygone dream, though a few companies are learning the pitfalls of what happens when you don't directly control a lot of the ingredients and process in your product.