Food, Inc.

Last updated

Food, Inc.
Food inc.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Kenner
Written by
  • Robert Kenner
  • Elise Pearlstein
  • Kim Roberts
Produced by
  • Robert Kenner
  • Elise Pearlstein
Starring
Edited by Kim Roberts
Music byMark Adler
Production
companies
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures
Release dates
  • September 7, 2008 (2008-09-07)(TIFF)
  • June 12, 2009 (2009-06-12)(United States)
Running time
94 minutes [2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million [3]
Box office$4.6 million [4]

Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Robert Kenner [1] and narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. [5] [6] It examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees. The film received positive reviews and was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature. A sequel, Food, Inc. 2 was released on April 12, 2024.

Contents

Summary

The film examines the modern food industry, and raises alarms about both the industrial production of meat (chicken, beef, and pork) and the modern methods used to grow grains and vegetables (primarily corn and soybeans). It discusses the dominance of the American food market by a handful of huge corporations, which work to keep consumers from being aware of how their food is produced and are largely successful in their efforts to avoid such things as stronger food safety laws, the unionization of their workers, and additional food labeling regulations. These companies promote unhealthy food consumption habits among the American public and then supply cheap, inadequately safety-tested, increasingly transgenic food that is produced and transported using methods that exploit livestock, employees, farmers, and the environment and use large amounts of petroleum products. [1] [7] Eating organic, locally-grown food that is in season and reading product labels are offered as solutions, and the rapid growth of the organic food industry seen as providing hope for the future.

Interviewees

Production

Director Kenner spent three years producing the film. [8] [9] He claims he spent a large amount of his budget on legal fees to try to protect himself against lawsuits from industrial food producers, pesticide and fertilizer manufacturers, and other companies of which the film is critical. [8] Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, who both appear in the film as interview subjects, are credited as "Co-Producer" and "Special Consultant", respectively.

An extensive marketing campaign was undertaken to promote the film. Stonyfield Farm, an organic yogurt maker located in New Hampshire whose CEO is featured in the film, promoted the film by printing information about it on the foil lids of 10 million cups of yogurt in June 2009. [10] [11]

A companion book of the same name was released in May 2009. [6] [12] [13]

Release

After premiering at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, the film was shown as a preview at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, in February 2009. [14] It also screened at several film festivals in the spring before opening commercially in the United States on June 12, 2009. [7] [15] The film earned $61,400 from three theaters (in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) its opening weekend. [16] On June 19, it expanded to an additional 51 theaters in large cities in the U.S. and Canada, [7] [13] [15] [17] [18] and it made an additional $280,000 its second weekend. [17]

The film was initially set to be released in the United Kingdom in the summer of 2009, [19] but its release in the country was postponed until 12 February 2010. [20]

Response

The filmmakers' requests to interview representatives from such food giants as Monsanto Company, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, and Perdue Farms were declined. [15] [21] [22] Monsanto said it invited the filmmakers to a producers' trade show, [23] but the filmmakers claimed they were denied press credentials at the event and were not permitted to attend. The company established a website to respond to the film's claims about their products and actions. [1] [22] [24] An alliance of food production companies (led by the American Meat Institute) also created a website (SafeFoodInc.org) to respond to the claims made in the film. [7] [13] [21] [25] Cargill told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the company welcomed "differing viewpoints on how global agriculture can affordably nourish the world while minimizing environmental impact, ensuring food safety, guaranteeing food accessibility and providing meaningful work in agricultural communities", but criticized the film's "'one-size-fits-all' answers to a task as complex as nourishing 6 billion people who are so disparately situated across the world." [26]

Fast-food chain Chipotle offered free screenings of the film in July 2009 at various locations nationwide and stated it did things differently, which it hoped customers would appreciate after seeing the documentary. [27]

The film's director, Robert Kenner, denied attacking the current system of producing food, saying an interview with the SF Weekly that "All we want is transparency and a good conversation about these things", though he went on to say that "the whole system is made possible by government subsidies to a few huge crops like corn. It's a form of socialism that's making us sick." [28]

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95% based on 114 reviews, with an average score of 7.77/10; the website's critical consensus reads: "An eye-opening expose of the modern food industry, Food, Inc. is both fascinating and terrifying, and essential viewing for any health-conscious citizen." [29] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [30]

The Staten Island Advance called the film "excellent" and "sobering", concluding: "Documentaries work when they illuminate, when they alter how we think, which renders Food, Inc. a solid success, and a must-see." [31] The Toronto Sun called it "terrifying" and "frankly riveting". [18] The San Francisco Examiner was equally positive, calling the film "visually stylish" and "One of the year’s most important films". [32] The paper called the film's approach to its controversial subject matter "a dispassionate appeal to common sense" and applauded its "painstaking research and thoughtful, evenhanded commentary". [32] The Environmental Blog sympathized with the film's message and urged viewers to "vote to change this system". [33]

The Los Angeles Times praised 'the film's cinematography, and called it "eloquent" and "essential viewing." [34] The Montreal Gazette noted that, despite the film's focus on American food manufacture, it is worth viewing by anyone living in a country in which large-scale food production occurs. [6] The paper's reviewer declared the film a "must-see", but also cautioned that some of the scenes are "not for the faint of heart". [6]

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that earlier documentaries and books had examined similar issues, but still deemed the film to be worth seeing: "The food-conglomerate angle was covered in a less-ambitious documentary called King Corn, and a more-ambitious documentary called The Corporation touched on the menace of the multinationals; but this one hits the sweet spot, and it does it with style." [35] The review concluded that the most powerful portion of the film focused on Monsanto's pursuit of legal action against farmers accused of saving and reselling or replanting Monsanto’s patented seed in violation of a signed stewardship agreement and contract not to save and resell or replant seeds produced from crops grown from Monsanto seed. [24] [35]

Some reviews were less positive. A commentator at Forbes magazine found the film compelling, but incomplete, writing that it "fails to address how we might feed the country—or world" using the sustainable agriculture model advocated by the filmmakers, nor does it address the critical issues of cost and access. [23] A reviewer for The Washington Times said the film was "hamstrung" because few corporate executives wished to be interviewed, although the reviewer agreed that the filmmakers were aiming for balance. [36]

Awards

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards, [37] where it lost to The Cove , and for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 25th Independent Spirit Awards, where it lost to Anvil! The Story of Anvil . It tied for fourth place in the Best Documentary category at the 35th Seattle International Film Festival. [38]

Sequel

In January 2023, Participant announced a sequel, Food, Inc. 2 , to be released in late 2023, though was eventually pushed back to April 12, 2024. The documentary is a continuation of the original story. The film is being directed by Kenner and Melissa Robledo, who are being joined as producers by Schlosser and Pollan, the original film's narrators. [39]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Monsanto Company was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in the 1970s. Later, the company became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. In 2018, the company ranked 199th on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Burns</span> American documentarian and filmmaker (born 1953)

Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.

<i>Fast Food Nation</i> 2001 book by Eric Schlosser

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is a 2001 book by Eric Schlosser. First serialized by Rolling Stone in 1999, the book has drawn comparisons to Upton Sinclair's 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle. The book was adapted into a 2006 film of the same name, directed by Richard Linklater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Schlosser</span> American journalist and author (born 1959)

Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and food writer. He is known for his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Pollan</span> American author and journalist (born 1955)

Michael Kevin Pollan is an American journalist who is a professor and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University. Concurrently, he is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where in 2020 he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, in which he leads the public-education program. Pollan is best known for his books that explore the socio-cultural impacts of food, such as The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma.

<i>Fast Food Nation</i> (film) 2006 American film

Fast Food Nation is a 2006 mockumentary political satire black comedy film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Eric Schlosser. The film, an international co-production of the United States and the United Kingdom, is loosely based on Schlosser's bestselling 2001 non-fiction book Fast Food Nation.

<i>The Future of Food</i> 2004 American film

The Future of Food is a 2004 American documentary film written and directed by Deborah Koons Garcia to describe an investigation into unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods sold in grocery stores in the United States for the past decade. In addition to the US, there is a focus on Canada and Mexico.

<i>The Omnivores Dilemma</i> 2006 book by Michael Pollan

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book written by American author Michael Pollan published in 2006. As omnivores, humans have a variety of food choices. In the book, Pollan investigates the environmental and animal welfare effects of various food choices. He suggests that, prior to modern food preservation and transportation technologies, the dilemmas caused by these options were resolved primarily by cultural influences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie-Monique Robin</span> French TV journalist and documentary filmmaker

Marie-Monique Robin is a French TV journalist and documentary filmmaker. She generally issues books and documentary films together on the topics she investigates, in order to make more people aware of the issues she studies.

Gary Hirshberg is an American businessman. He is the former chief executive officer of Stonyfield Farm, an organic yogurt company, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He joined the company just after its founding in 1983 and stepped down in 2011, but continues to serve as Chairman. He frequently speaks on topics including sustainability, organic agriculture and the profitability of green business.

Stonyfield Farm, also simply called Stonyfield, is an organic yogurt maker and dairy company located in Londonderry, New Hampshire, United States. Stonyfield Farm was founded by Samuel Kaymen in 1983, on a 19th-century farmstead in Wilton, New Hampshire, as an organic farming school. The company makes the second leading brand of organic yogurt in North America, with 13.3% of the market.

MON 863 is a genetically engineered variety of maize produced by Monsanto. It is genetically altered to express a modified version of Cry3Bb1, a delta endotoxin which originates from Bacillus thuringiensis. This protects the plant from corn rootworm. Unlike MON 810, Bt 11, and Bt 176 which each produce a modified Cry1Ab, MON 863 instead produces a modified Cry3Bb1 toxin and contains nptII, a marker gene for antibiotic resistance.

<i>King Corn</i> (film) 2007 American film

King Corn is a documentary film released in October 2007 that follows college friends Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis as they move from Boston to Greene, Iowa to grow and farm an acre of corn. Coincidentally, the trip also takes them back to where both of their families have roots. In the process, Cheney and Ellis examine the trend of increased corn production and its effects on American society, highlighting the role of government subsidies in encouraging the huge amount of corn grown. Furthermore, by studying the food economy through the history of corn in America, the two realize most foods contain corn in some form.

Robert Kenner is an American film and television director, producer, and writer. Kenner is best known for directing the film Food, Inc. as well as the films, Command and Control, Merchants of Doubt, and When Strangers Click.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a 501(c)(3), U.S. non-profit advocacy organization, based in Washington, D.C. It maintains an office in San Francisco, California, and Portland, Oregon. CFS's mission is to empower people, support farmers, and protect the earth from the harmful impacts of industrial agriculture through groundbreaking legal, scientific, and grassroots action. It was founded in 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curtis Ellis</span> American filmmaker

Curtis Cleland 'Curt' Ellis is an American filmmaker, social entrepreneur, and advocate for sustainable agriculture and healthy food. He serves as co-founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit organization FoodCorps. He shared a Peabody Award in 2008 for King Corn, which he co-produced and starred in, and in 2011 he won the 17th Annual Heinz Award with longtime collaborator Ian Cheney for their work in the sustainable food movement.

The World According to Monsanto is a 2008 film directed by Marie-Monique Robin. Originally released in French as Le monde selon Monsanto, the film is based on Robin's three-year-long investigation into the corporate practices around the world of the United States multinational corporation, Monsanto. The World According to Monsanto is also the title of a book written by Robin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Ziering</span> American filmmaker

Amy Ziering is an American film producer and director. Mostly known for her work in documentary films, she is a regular collaborator of director Kirby Dick; they co-directed 2002's Derrida and 2020's On the Record, with Ziering also producing several of Dick's films.

Sanjay Rawal is an Indian-American documentary film director who lives in New York City. His first feature length film Food Chains premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in its Culinary Cinema Programme in 2014 and had its US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Food Chains was produced by Smriti Keshari, Eva Longoria, Eric Schlosser, and Rawal himself. Forest Whitaker narrates. Rawal was a winner of the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award for Special/Documentary for Food Chains. The film itself shared the 2016 BritDoc Documentary Impact Award.

<i>Food, Inc. 2</i> 2023 documentary film

Food, Inc. 2 is a 2023 American documentary film directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, and narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser. It is the sequel to the 2008 film Food, Inc.. The film focuses on corporate consolidation in the American food and agriculture business.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Severson, Kim. "Eat, Drink, Think, Change." Archived December 5, 2017, at the Wayback Machine The New York Times. June 3, 2009.
  2. ↑ "Food Inc. (PG)". British Board of Film Classification . January 13, 2010. Archived from the original on October 20, 2016. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
  3. ↑ Box Office Information for Food, Inc. The Wrap . Retrieved April 4, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Food, Inc." BoxOfficeMojo.com. February 27, 2010. Archived November 16, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2009-02-27.
  5. ↑ Biancolli, Amy. "Review: 'Food, Inc.' Not for the Squeamish." Archived June 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine San Francisco Chronicle. June 12, 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Chesterman, Lesley. "A Film That Will Make You Think Before You Eat." Archived June 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Montreal Gazette. June 20, 2009.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "New Film Offers Troubling View of US Food Industry." Associated Press. June 7, 2009.
  8. 1 2 Simmons, Krista. "What Really Goes Into the Bag: Behind the Movie 'Food, Inc.'." Archived June 11, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times. June 7, 2009.
  9. ↑ There is some dispute as to how long the film was in production. In another interview, director Robert Kenner claims the film took six years to make. See: Math, Mara. "The Right to Know About What We Eat." Archived June 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine San Francisco Examiner. June 11, 2009.
  10. ↑ "'Food, Inc.' Gets Promo on Yogurt Lids." Archived June 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine The Hollywood Reporter. June 11, 2009.
  11. ↑ Marrero, Diana. "Sensenbrenner Cow Tax Fears Come Out of Thin Air." Archived January 20, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. June 13, 2009.
  12. ↑ Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer—And What You Can Do About It. Karl Weber, ed. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. ISBN   1-58648-694-2
  13. 1 2 3 Levine, Allen. "Little Ag vs. Big Ag? Best Bet On Both." Archived March 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine St. Paul Pioneer Press. June 18, 2009.
  14. ↑ "Food, Inc." True/False Film Festival. No date. Accessed 2009-07-31. Archived March 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  15. 1 2 3 Deardorff, Julie. "Food, Inc.: How Factory Farming Affects You." Archived June 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Chicago Tribune. June 12, 2009.
  16. ↑ "Good Buzz Wins Out As 'Hangover,' 'Up' Dominate Box Office Once Again." Archived June 30, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times. June 14, 2009; Germain, David. "'Hangover' Hangs On As No. 1 Movie With $33.4M." Archived May 13, 2022, at the Wayback Machine Associated Press. June 14, 2009.
  17. 1 2 Kilday, Gregg. "'Proposal' Accepted at the Box Office." Archived January 31, 2010, at the Wayback Machine The Hollywood Reporter. June 21, 2009.
  18. 1 2 Braun, Liz. "You'll Choke On This Info." Archived June 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Toronto Sun. June 19, 2009.
  19. ↑ Rayner, Jay. "Food Is the New Fur for the Celebrity With a Conscience." Archived March 13, 2017, at the Wayback Machine The Observer. June 14, 2009.
  20. ↑ "UK Film release schedule - past, present and future". www.launchingfilms.com. 2009. Archived from the original on December 31, 2010. Retrieved November 10, 2009.
  21. 1 2 Kearney, Christine. "Film Aims to Expose Dangers in U.S. Food Industry." Archived February 12, 2021, at the Wayback Machine Reuters. June 9, 2009.
  22. 1 2 Gustin, Georgina. "'Food, Inc.' Chews Up Monsanto, Agribusiness Cousins." [ permanent dead link ] St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 26, 2009.
  23. 1 2 Ruiz, Rebecca. "What Food Activists Ignore." Archived October 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine Forbes. June 11, 2009.
  24. 1 2 Monsanto site about the movie Food, Inc. Archived November 18, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2009-06-07.
  25. ↑ "Web Site Takes on 'Food Inc'." Pork Magazine. June 12, 2009 Archived June 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine ; Levin, Ann. "'Food Inc.' Has Sickening View of Food Industry." [ permanent dead link ]Associated Press. June 21, 2009.
  26. ↑ "Cargill's Response to 'Food Inc.'." Archived February 1, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Minneapolis Star Tribune. June 20, 2009.
  27. ↑ "Free Food – Food, Inc., That Is". Zagat.com. July 9, 2009. Archived from the original on October 7, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2009.
  28. ↑ Birdsall, John. "A Conversation with 'Food, Inc.' Director Robert Kenner." Archived June 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine San Francisco Weekly. June 12, 2009.
  29. ↑ "Food, Inc. (2009)" RottenTomatoes.com Archived February 11, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2010-11-30.
  30. ↑ "Food, Inc." Metacritic.com No date. Archived May 13, 2022, at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2009-11-19.
  31. ↑ Hill, Todd. "'Food, Inc.,' 'Moon' Top This Week's Alternatives to Mainstream Movies." Archived June 17, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Staten Island Advance. June 12, 2009.
  32. 1 2 "Drake, Rossiter. "Here's Why Food Is Factory Fresh." San Francisco Examiner. June 12, 2009". Archived from the original on June 14, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2009.
  33. ↑ Food Inc Review Archived October 26, 2011, at the Wayback Machine - The Environmental Blog
  34. ↑ "Goldstein, Gary. "Movie Review: 'Food, Inc.'" Los Angeles Times. June 12, 2009". Archived from the original on June 16, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2009.
  35. 1 2 Williams, Joe. "'Food, Inc.'" Archived July 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine St. Louis Post-Dispatch. June 26, 2009.
  36. ↑ Bunch, Sonny. "Moore Worry Haunts Cinema." Archived June 22, 2009, at the Wayback Machine The Washington Times. June 19, 2009.
  37. ↑ "The Canadian Press: List of 82nd annual Academy Award nominations". Archived from the original on February 6, 2010. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  38. ↑ Kilday, Gregg. "Seattle Fest Announces Winners." Archived June 18, 2009, at the Wayback Machine The Hollywood Reporter. June 14, 2009.
  39. ↑ Grobar, Matt (January 18, 2023). "'Food, Inc.' Sequel In Works From Participant". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on January 18, 2023. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
  40. ↑ "Taste the Waste at Oneworld.cz". Oneworld.cz. Archived from the original on December 1, 2015. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.