When I went to university in Southampton in 1976 Whitbread became an important part of my life. They were the dominant local brewer.
Whitbread has not brewed beer for many years now. But I have drunk a lot of its Costa Coffe, which was still a brew, of sorts.
And now that's to be sold to Coca Cola. And Whitbread will just run Premier Inn.
It's fair to say I have come a long way since 1976, but I am still recognisably me.
Whitbread is not. It has instead became the typical modern corporation: it follows the money. What it does and how it does it is not really what matters. The return rules.
I've never felt that a basis for a business. Return matters, of course, when running a company. It is what ultimately drives cash flow, and that is the core of all business activity, like it or not. But it is never enough for me.
There is value in knowing who you are, what you do, who you serve and why. The Whitbread of 1976 would not know the Whitbread of today and I very much doubt it is really a better company as a result.
Doing what you do well matters. And making money is always a consequence of that. The transient enterprise - in an activity today and gone from it tomorrow as the whim of finance dictates - seems to have forgotten that critical fact.
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Buy me a coffee!
Well thanks for the heads up.
Costa owned by Coca-Cola?
No thanks.
That is me and Costa done.
It makes me pretty uncomfortable too
Whitbread weren’t bad on the tax front
But Coke?
“Whitbread weren’t bad on the tax front”
Long long time since they brewed anything fit to drink though isn’t it? A couple of generations I would think.
Maybe the coffee is OK but at the price they charge for a cup I drink coffee all week.
And what’s wrong with Coca Cola for heaven’s sake. The extermination of the indigenous tribes of America is a small price to pay for global availability of fizzy water with some chemical muck in it.
I’ve been wondering whether conglomerates of this sort should be allowed where there is little relationship between products. But then there’s Mondragon… Is there anything to be done?
Is Mondragon transient?
No, I wasn’t referring to transient enterprises but conglomerates generally. Is it only transient ones which are the problem? I’m not sure.
I suspect you have a point
But Mondragon has a purpose
Transient enterprises are just about cash
Carol Mondragon is not a conglomerate, neither is it a transient organisation. Mondragon is a Worker Self Directed Enterprise under which umbrella some 270+ worker Co-Ops carry out their business. It is definitely not a capitalist organisation. Its organisation is democratic. Mondragon has its own bank and its own university. How many transient capitalist conglomerates have their own university? Labour is committed to expanding this sector. Definitely the way to go to help deliver Richard’s New Green Deal IMO.
The point is they have many different businesses, not all complementary, so they can be considered a conglomerate.
@Carol
But Mondragon seem to have a purpose despite the many different branches.
It feels you’re confusing transient ‘cash chasing’ conglomerate with co-operative conglomerate.
I disagree that the point is that they are conglomerates. Surely the point is, as RM mentioned, whether they try to act as a positive organisation or as an organisation which just chases money.
Or put a different way, it may be better to consider the company’s behaviour rather then the company’s structure.
Why do I feel we’re both arguing the same point in different ways…
The only bright side is that Coca-Cola buying Costa for such a high price means that Coca-Cola think that sugar and sweeteners could well eventually do for Coke. And their purchase of Innocent was not so healthy after all. Coca-Cola need to diversify. As of course Pepsi did long ago – much smaller on the Cola front but much larger overall.
Not directly tax-related (or maybe it is) but I’ve long thought it should be mandatory for all products to carry the name of their ultimate parent company, which is certainly not always the case. It is especially deceiving in the food industry where behemoths such as Unilever, Nestlé, Kraft Heinz, Danone and Mondelez International anonymously market subsidiaries often to retain the products’ original ethical brand image. This lack of transparency is intentionally deceptive.
Ten years ago The Indie ran an article about it: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-food-chain-how-big-business-bought-up-the-ethical-market-845854.html.
There is a continuing consolidation of brands under the trans-national umbrella which is not in the consumers’ interest nor the wider economy. It’s reached epic proportions in the US where just 2 companies now control 70% of all toothpaste sales – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLfO-2t1qPQ&t=76s.
Markets offer consumers choice? I don’t think so.
Me neither
John D says:
“… long thought it should be mandatory for all products to carry the name of their ultimate parent company, …”
yeah, works for me.
I can’t do with cadbury’s chocolate…it now tastes to me like margarine.
Business follows fashion, like everything else. I recall when ‘conglomerates’ were the rage. It was in the first flush of the success of Business Schools: Business was “Business”; a master-skill that rose above whatever it was the business did, to do just “business”, without the mere detail of the eh, business: gosh! Remember Hanson? A business that crowed it was from “here”, that was rather good at doing business over “there”. Frightfully smug. Ah, well, where are they all now?
It passed. Then it was “stick to the knitting”. Nobody at the top could knit. That didn’t last long. Now we have a hybrid. The “stick to the knitting” serial conglomerate. They just do not do the conglomerate bit all at the same time; time sequenced conglomeration (the cash conglomerates). It is one-at-a-time disposable knitting. You see, they do not need to know how to knit (you buy it in cheap now); you just exude the master-skill. Frightfully smug.
Are there not three fundamental things balanced individual human beings want or be granted the right to:
– the right to survive
– the right to have well-being in that survival
– that others should also have these first two rights
If we acknowledge the validity and the necessity for these three rights then we must also recognise that free market capitalism doesn’t fully deliver on these rights and we collectively need to correct this.
I am reminded of the infamous company “For carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it is”…
🙂
I’m done with Costa then – although I liked their Rasberry and Almond thingy. I dumped Starbucks because their coffee tastes of cats’ piss. I currently use Coffee #1 in Stroud and Gloucester. Are they OK?
No idea
AMT have a Fair Tax Mark
Rod White says:
“I’m done with Costa then …”
It’s the lemon tarts I’ll miss. Although outrageously pricey they were very good.
I buy local or small company whenever I can and frequently do without rather than buy from a multi-national. I would encourage others to do the same.
Just eat your Porridge! : Quakers or Scott’s…both owned by Pepsico.
What about LIDL porridge? Am I allowed to eat That?
Rod White says:
“What about LIDL porridge? Am I allowed to eat That?..”
Dunno. I do. Put enough cream on it, it doesn’t matter to me where it comes from.
Has to be Scottish cream though. 🙂
Carol you say “The point is they many different businesses, not all of them complementary so they can be considered a conglomerate” . So what. Mondragon’s defining feature is that its organisational structure is democratic. That is in stark contrast to Capitalist enterprises which are not remotely democratic. The individual co-ops are not themselves conglomerates. IMO Worker co-ops are the way forward. They are much more successful than capitalist enterprises. They should form the major plank of a future Labour Governments Industrial policy.
I know about Mondragon and support the idea of workers co-ops. I was merely wondering whether the concept of a ‘conglomerate’ is a good idea, which I thought was part of the subject of this blog.
Mondragon has changed a lot since I went to a cooperatives’ conference with a fair few from there at Vigo in the nineties. The right like to dismiss it as ‘a Basque myth’. All speeches over-ran almost in Fidel form and there was loads of unassumed sexism. Whitbread destroyed Boddingtons as a brew and then advertised the foul remains as “The Cream of Manchester”. Mondragon, in spite of rather long-winded blokes or because of them underwent renewal, is now international and created 2,000 new jobs in its original area in 2017. This cooperative was a great partner in EU initiatives and continues to innovate through them. It has changed more successfully than most capitalist conglomerates I can think of, unhampered by fundamental decency and near-equality.
“…Whitbread destroyed Boddingtons”
Bastards !
I didn’t know they’d done that. That’s Premier inns off the list then.
Camper van or tent it’s coming down to.
Andy
Boddington’s is probably the biggest and most famous brewing name destroyed by Whitbread, but it is very far from the only one. And Whitbread is (sorry, was) not the only acquisitive and destructive player in the brewing sector. The big business model of capitalism which is currently prevalent has destroyed two things that are dear to me – beer and football. The trouble these days is that the real big money is made by buying and selling businesses, not by making and selling quality products.
I like to think I too pick and choose between “worthy” recipients of my custom, but the truth is that if you try to adopt an ethical or principled approach to consumption, you are bound to go wrong somewhere, sooner or later. You mentioned Cadburys in an earlier post. Both the Cadbury and Rowntree families must be fairly birling in their graves these days!
They’re not the only Quaker families to do so
Remember Barclays and Lloyds were Quaker banks