As the human race continues its mass migration towards living solely in cities, we tend to forget (or not care?) where our food comes from. I can say with quite some confidence that the majority of my generation has never actually met a farmer, unless it was on a field trip for school when they were younger or perhaps at a saturday morning “farmers market” in order to buy fresh produce.

Now although we are choosing to embrace concrete jungles over the beautiful and harmonic relationships we once had with nature, food must still be produced somewhere. Over the last couple of decades, large multinationals have stepped in as our modern day “farmers” (I put that in parentheses because 99% of what they do can hardly be call farming in the traditional sense) setting up giant industrial operations in the hinterlands of countries throughout the planet.

There’s a great quote that I have heard many times over the last couple of years which clearly states our current predicament in the majority of the western world: “If we knew where our food came from, how it was prepared, we definitely would not eat it!” I’m not sure who the quote can be attributed to, however over the last couple years several documentaries have been produced for the masses of “city folk” to try and shed some light on this relatively obscured and overlooked subject. Most notably the toned-down Food Inc., or the more gruesome (and highly recommended) Earthlings.

The large multinationals have Marketing/PR/Advertising departments with budgets in the millions of dollars. We know this. We (city folk) claim that we no longer fall for the “marketing and advertising tricks” that companies excessively interrupt us with on a daily basis. For the most part this may be true when it comes to selling insurance or that brand new, must have widget all the kids are talking about, however, when it comes to food, we tend to overlook it. Or worse we simply dismiss it, both intellectually and emotionally rationalizing our choices. And you do have choices.

Giant agri-businesses thus continue to paste our milk cartons with pictures of the idyllic farms that are generated and framed into our minds as young children. They continue to lobby the government against the mandatory labelling of GMOs (genetically modified foods), against fair trade, continue to spend billions of dollars annually to keep you in the dark. Whether through misleading positive marketing and brand positioning or utilizing their massive legal muscle when necessary.

Last monday, Greenpeace posted a video on Youtube to help us get a better sense of just how one of North America’s favorite snacks is made. I’m sure Jane Goodall is smiling. From their campaign site:

“Nestlé, maker of Kit Kat, uses palm oil from companies that are trashing Indonesian rainforests, threatening the livelihoods of local people and pushing orang-utans towards extinction.

We all deserve to have a break – but having one shouldn’t involve taking a bite out of Indonesia’s precious rainforests. We’re asking Nestlé to give rainforests and orang-utans a break and stop buying palm oil from destroyed forests.”

Here’s the  spoof video that created a ton of buzz on twitter, among other social media sites:

Nestlé banned this video about KitKat
Uploaded by visionontv. – Watch funny animal videos.

[if the above video has been removed or no longer works, click here to view it on Vimeo]

Excellent video, no?

It is what happened next that truly created a firestorm on Twitter. Nestle used their legal team to have the video removed as quickly as possible from YouTube, citing copyright infringement. Within about 2 hours it was gone. Here’s how one YouTube user (onlinejournalist) believes they went about this:

From a social issues stand point, we should not support companies such as these who are ruining the earth in order to make a profit. Palm oil monoculture farmlands are popping up all over the third world as it is a cheaper, more robust crop to grow. It’s one thing to have traditional farmlands converted to monocultures (which is still EXTREMELY BAD!) but it’s another thing to willfully destroy rainforests which are thousands of years old in order to cut costs. The loss of the rainforests not only is a problem in regard to the HUGE loss of biodiversity (in this case it is the plight of the Orang-Utans which is highlighted) which is lost with each hectare ripped away, but it is also very important that the rainforests are kept thriving due to their specific role in the fight against climate change – the rainforests are basically the earth’s lungs.

Now every time that I have ever made a statement such as: “We/you should not support companies which have such destructive practices” I get a ton of angry (usually unaware people) who quickly snap back: “But EVERYBODY, EVERY company does these things. I wouldn’t be able to eat ANYTHING.”

I cannot stand that argument as it is just a cop-out. And it is absolutely not true. You do have choices. From now on, don’t eat any kit kat bars. As a matter of fact do not eat, drink or buy anything that Nestle produces (or it’s subsidiaries). If you find out that literally “every” candy bar company lacks ethical & socially-responsible pratices – then don’t buy from ANY of them. Make your own snacks at home.

It is your moral obligation to the planet and future generations that you are not complicit in these destructive activities and also your obligation that you make yourself aware and fight back against them.

“So, no Mcdonalds? No Burger King? No Tim Hortons? No Kraft? No…”

Yes, a big NO to all of them. As consumers and human beings we have the power and duty to ensure that these companies are constantly striving to be 100% sustainable and until then, we should not give them a penny.

Lastly (for now), yes, I am aware that it is not only Nestle who engages in such practices. And I am also aware of the tons of other terrible practices which Nestle engages in in regard to labor, milk, baby formula, bottled water, etc, etc…

Use the internet to find out more information about your favorite brands and products to learn the true story behind them, not just what their ads convey. A good start is to begin researching any of the following companies & their subsidiaries:

Now on to the marketing/PR perspective of this fiasco. Nestle screwed up. Big Time. It’s good to see that they are at least trying to manage their online reputation by at least listening (although passively) to what those in the social media spheres are saying (proved by their quickness in spotting the video and having it removed) however, they obviously don’t understand how the internet/social media works.

Nestle has yet to have actually responded to the video. No (real) human being has given an explanation for the removal of the video or simply commented on their position in regard to using palm-oil suppliers which destroy precious rainforests and subsequently destroy the habitats of thousands of different species. Strike one.

Strike two is that they didn’t realize that when you try to force the internet to hide something nowadays, it simply infuriates those who support the open internet and that which you try to hide or suppress will simply pop up in other places, in this case Vimeo (or Dailymotion, or vodpod or…) within 30 minutes of the Youtube removal.

Strike three comes when you try to suppress or hide a spoof video such as this one from becoming viral, your actions simply make it more viral. Your high-paid marketing/PR department should be aware of this. It’s elementary human nature. Especially the nature of the internet.

It’s 2010. Traditional top-down command & control of how information flows no longer exists.

Get use to it.

If you’d like to read more about Greenpeace’s kit kat campaign as well as their response to Nestle’s PR department for the removal of the video from YouTube, click here

Thank you for connecting,