The World's Largest Food and Beverage Companies in 2022
| Food Rank | Global 2000 Rank | Company | Country | Industry | Spec. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 46 | Nestle S.A. | Switzerland | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Food Processing |
| 2 | 86 | PepsiCo, Inc. | United States | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Beverages |
| 3 | 93 | Anheuser-Busch InBev SA | Belgium | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Beverages |
| 4 | 114 | Coca-Cola Co. | United States | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Beverages |
| 5 | 222 | Mondelez International | United States | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Food Processing |
| 6 | 237 | Archer-Daniels-Midland Company | United States | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Food Processing |
| 7 | 287 | Diageo plc | United Kingdom | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Beverages |
| 8 | 292 | Kweichow Moutai Co., Ltd. Class A | China | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Beverages |
| 9 | 318 | Tyson Foods, Inc. Class A | United States | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Food Processing |
| 10 | 330 | Danone SA | France | Food, Drink & Tobacco | Food Processing |
The food industry is a complex, global network of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world's population. The food industry today has become highly diversified, with manufacturing ranging from small, traditional, family-run activities that are highly labour-intensive, to large, capital-intensive and highly mechanized industrial processes. Many food industries depend almost entirely on local agriculture, animal farms, produce, and/or fishing.[1]
It is challenging to find an inclusive way to cover all aspects of food production and sale. The UK Food Standards Agency describes it as "the whole food industry – from farming and food production, packaging and distribution, to retail and catering."[2] The Economic Research Service of the USDA uses the term food system to describe the same thing, stating: "The U.S. food system is a complex network of farmers and the industries that link to them. Those links include makers of farm equipment and chemicals as well as firms that provide services to agribusinesses, such as providers of transportation and financial services. The system also includes the food marketing industries that link farms to consumers, and which include food and fiber processors, wholesalers, retailers, and foodservice establishments."[3] The food industry includes:
- Agriculture: raising crops, livestock, and seafood. Agricultural economics.
- Manufacturing: agrichemicals, agricultural construction, farm machinery and supplies, seed, etc.
- Food processing: preparation of fresh products for market, and manufacture of prepared food products
- Marketing: promotion of generic products (e.g., milk board), new products, advertising, marketing campaigns, packaging, public relations, etc.
- Wholesale and food distribution: logistics, transportation, warehousing
- Foodservice (which includes catering)
- Grocery, farmers' markets, public markets and other retailing
- Regulation: local, regional, national, and international rules and regulations for food production and sale, including food quality, food security, food safety, marketing/advertising, and industry lobbying activities
- Education: academic, consultancy, vocational
- Research and development: food science, food microbiology, food technology, food chemistry, and food engineering
- Financial services: credit, insurance
Areas of research such as food grading, food preservation, food rheology, food storage directly deal with the quality and maintenance of quality overlapping many of the above processes.
Only subsistence farmers, those who survive on what they grow, and hunter-gatherers can be considered outside the scope of the modern food industry.
The dominant companies in the food industry have sometimes been referred to as Big Food, a term coined by the writer Neil Hamilton.[4][5][6][7]
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (/tʃɪˈpoʊtleɪ/, chih-POHT-lay),[3] often known simply as Chipotle, is an American chain of fast casual restaurants specializing in bowls, tacos and Mission burritos made to order in front of the customer.[4][5] Chipotle operates restaurants in the United States, United Kingdom,[6] Canada,[7][8] Germany,[9] and France.[10] Its name derives from chipotle, the Nahuatl name for a smoked and dried jalapeño chili pepper.[11][12]
Chipotle was one of the first chains of fast casual dining establishments.[13] Founded by Steve Ells on July 13, 1993, Chipotle had 16 restaurants (all in Colorado) when McDonald's Corporation became a major investor in 1998. By the time McDonald's fully divested itself from Chipotle in 2006,[14] the chain had grown to over 500 locations. With more than 2,000 locations, Chipotle had a net income of US$475.6 million and a staff of more than 45,000 employees in 2015.[15]
In May 2018, Chipotle announced the relocation of their corporate headquarters to Newport Beach, California, in Southern California, ending their relationship with Denver after 25 years.
Nestlé S.A.[a] (/ˈnɛsleɪ, -li, -əl/ NESS-lay, -lee, -əl,[5] French: [nɛsle], German: [ˈnɛstlə] (listen)) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 2014.[6][7][8][9][10] It ranked No. 64 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2017[11] and No. 33 in the 2016 edition of the Forbes Global 2000 list of the largest public companies.[12]
Nestlé's products include baby food (some including human milk oligosaccharides), medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, frozen food, pet foods, and snacks. Twenty-nine of Nestlé's brands have annual sales of over 1 billion CHF (about US$1.1 billion),[13] including Nespresso, Nescafé, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer's, Vittel, and Maggi. Nestlé has 447 factories, operates in 189 countries, and employs around 339,000 people.[14] It is one of the main shareholders of L'Oreal, the world's largest cosmetics company.[15]
Nestlé was formed in 1905 by the merger of the "Anglo-Swiss Milk Company", which was established in 1866 by brothers George and Charles Page, and "Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé" founded in 1867 by Henri Nestlé.[16] The company grew significantly during the World War I and again following World War II, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products. The company has made a number of corporate acquisitions including Crosse & Blackwell in 1950, Findus in 1963, Libby's in 1971, Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988, Klim in 1998, and Gerber in 2007.
The company has been associated with various controversies, facing criticism and boycotts over its marketing of baby formula as an alternative to breastfeeding in developing countries (where clean water may be scarce), its reliance on child labour in cocoa production, and its production and promotion of bottled water.
