Your mention of Edgell's just reminded me of a statistic that still blows my mind. My parents have a couple of farms, sheep and potato. Contracted to McCain's (huge American multi-national heartless bas...), they supply potatoes to McDonald's. McCain pays them $300 a ton and McDonald's earns $16,000 from that ton.
I also got hot under the collar when McCains had the audacity to send their technicians out to my parents property with a laptop to tests various paddocks and tell them what fertiliser they would like them to use and which paddocks require more/less. And then charge them for their services. Where does their intrusion stop? Mountains did move eventually, however. My parents bought their own equipment, do their own testing and email them the data. My parents have developed a multi-million dollar business from nothing through hard work and endeavour over 50 years. It absolutely galls me that they have to toe the line with multi-nationals such as McCain's. The only other competitor in the market is Simplot, to which you have referred. Thank God for water licenses - they are now worth just as much as the farms and will allow Mum and Dad to walk away when and if they choose to.
