Go behind the brands you buy

What do Toblerone and Tropicana have in common? The same as Coca-Cola, Cheerios and Cadbury’s and Oreos, Pringles and Pop Tarts. They’re all made by the “Big 10” food companies, who between them make over $1 billion a day.

Here at Oxfam we’ve spent a good part of the past 18 months looking at how the world’s biggest food firms – household names like Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Kellogg – do business. While some are doing better than others, overall, the results are bad news. But the good news is that no brand is so big it can ignore its customers – and that’s where you come in.

We know you already think hard about what you buy, so we’re not asking you to feel guilty about it. Instead we want to work with you to push for these companies we buy from everyday to do better.

We’ve created a simple Behind the Brands Scorecard to compare how 10 biggest food companies score on issues from water to workers. The results aren’t pretty – and when it comes to supporting the women in supply chains all companies are failing.

Start with the women behind your chocolate

Three companies – Nestlé, Mars and Mondelēz – buy over 30% of the cocoa grown worldwide. But the women who grow and pick that cocoa are getting a raw deal.

This matters because it’s women who most often provide food for their families, and thousands of these women farmers and their families are going hungry. And because you buy the bars, you really can change the way those chocolate companies do business.

For decades, these companies have put women front and centre in their advertising but have ignored the women they rely on to grow the chocolate. It’s time for Nestlé, Mars and Mondelēz to LOOK, LISTEN and ACT for the women who grow their cocoa.

But first, they’ll listen to you. You don’t need to stop buying chocolate. But you can stop the big chocolate companies from putting women last. Sign the petition now and urge these companies to act.

Because if you think you can’t change the food system, you really need to think again. You’re more powerful than any of the world’s biggest food companies. Without you, they won’t stay big for long.