Part II: Food for Profit

Part II: Food for Profit – How Corporations Engineered Hunger in a World of Plenty

In a world of unprecedented agricultural abundance, it strikes me as a cruel paradox that billions still go hungry, while others are dying from diseases of overconsumption. This situation—scarcity amid plenty, malnutrition amid surplus—is no accident. I believe it is the calculated outcome of a food system built not to feed people, but to feed profits.

At the heart of this system is the legal fiction we discussed in Part I: the corporation as a person, whose sole directive is to maximise shareholder value. When this logic is applied to something as fundamental as food, the consequences are devastating. It transforms nourishment into a product, turns fields into factories, and reduces eaters to “consumers”—and all too often, into casualties.

In this piece, I want to explore how corporate personhood corrupted our most basic biological need and how the drive to serve shareholders has engineered a global food system that is not only unsustainable but, in my opinion, actively toxic.

Feeding Shareholders, Not People

A tomato grown in a garden is food. A tomato turned into ketchup, stripped of its fibre, spiked with sugar, and branded for mass appeal—that’s a product.

The global food industry is now dominated by a handful of mega-corporations. Names like Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, and Cargill control nearly every step of the food chain, from the soil to the supermarket shelf. This consolidation has allowed them to dictate what is grown, how it is processed, and who gets to eat it.

Their goal? Not to feed the world or to nourish our bodies, but to maximise returns. And under the rules of corporate personhood, that goal isn’t just a preference—it’s a legal mandate.

The Logic of Processed Profits

Whole foods are unpredictable. They rot. They vary in size and shape. They don’t scale well for global markets. But processed foods—engineered for uniformity, long shelf life, and hyper-palatability—are perfect profit vehicles.

So, corporations invest billions to:

• Strip nutrients from food because it’s cheaper to refine.
• Add salt, sugar, and fat to boost flavour and create addiction.
• Market heavily to children and vulnerable communities.
• Eliminate local competition through pricing and legal intimidation.

I don’t see this as a conspiracy; it’s the logical outcome of a system where value is measured in stock price, not in public health outcomes.

And because corporations are “persons” with political rights, they use that power to fight regulation, suppress warning labels, and bury research that might harm their bottom line. The result is a vicious loop: more processed food leads to more disease, which leads to more pharmaceuticals, and ultimately, more profit.

Who Pays the Price?

It’s not just about “bad food.” It’s about who gets fed what—and who gets left behind.

• Farmers are squeezed into debt by monopolistic seed and equipment companies and forced to grow monocrops that destroy soil health.
• Workers in industrial agriculture face brutal conditions, low wages, and chemical exposure, especially in the Global South.
• Eaters are told we have “choices,” but those choices are often manufactured and marketed with predatory precision. Fresh food can become a luxury, while processed food floods our communities.
• The environment bears the weight of intensive pesticide use, fossil-fuel-dependent fertilisers, and agricultural runoff.

All of this is externalised—the true costs are dumped on our public health systems, ecosystems, and future generations. The corporation, protected by its non-human status, walks away clean.

Hunger Isn’t a Scarcity Problem—It’s a Profit Problem

Every year, the world produces enough food to feed 10 billion people. And yet, over 800 million people suffer from hunger, while nearly 2 billion adults are overweight or obese. Diet-related diseases kill millions annually.

This isn’t an accident. It’s what happens when feeding people becomes secondary to selling food products.

In fact, hunger can be good for business. Food conglomerates can use crises—war, drought, inflation—to raise prices, speculate on commodities, and consolidate control. When real human suffering occurs, their stock prices often rise.

Corporate “Solutions” Are Trojan Horses

When corporations talk about “sustainability” or “ending world hunger,” I’ve learned to be sceptical. Behind the marketing campaigns are often efforts to:

• Control genetically modified seeds and patent life itself.
• Replace small-scale farms with AI-driven agri-tech monopolies.
• Push “nutritional science” that justifies ultra-processed substitutes.

Their solutions always seem to reinforce the same model: control, dependency, and profit.

The Way Out: Reclaiming Food as a Human Right

If food is life, then I believe access to it should not depend on profit margins. We must decommodify food and reframe it as a human right, not just a product.

For me, that means:

• Supporting local, regenerative agriculture and protecting seed sovereignty.
• Investing in public food systems like schools, community gardens, and cooperatives.
• Resisting trade deals that centralise food control.
• Taxing or regulating processed foods that drive public health crises.
• And ultimately, abolishing corporate personhood so food corporations can be held fully accountable for the harm they cause.

Because a “person” that knowingly profits from the mass production of disease and hunger does not deserve the rights of citizenship. In my mind, that’s not a person; it’s a parasite.

Conclusion: What Would Food Look Like Without Corporate Rule?

Without corporate personhood distorting the incentives, I imagine food could become something sacred again: a source of health, culture, and community. Not just fuel or profit, but something we share.

Food grown for flavour and nourishment, not shelf life. Farmers paid fairly. Eaters respected. The Earth regenerated.

But I don’t believe we will ever get there while immortal, amoral corporations sit at the head of the table. To reclaim our food, we must “kill the corporation”—not with fire, but with law, with imagination, and with a fierce loyalty to the living world over an artificial “person.”