A Study of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities of 12 Giant Food Companies (1980-2008) in Promoting Healthy Food

This chapter examines the recent pledges made by 12 giant food and beverage companies in response to the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) program initiated by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB). The CFBAI program requires participants to commit to core advertising principles to combat the growing childhood obesity epidemic. Key to the success of the CFBAI program is compliance to the pledges. The chapter first uses an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate the commitments in the pledges and then collects healthy food corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities over the period of 1980-2008. By matching the past CSR performances with the current commitments, it makes an initial prediction of the future compliance of the 12 companies. Results show that some companies have performed consistently well in CSR and current pledges, while other companies show poor or mixed performances. Monitoring efforts should be directed to the latter group of companies. On the other hand, to reach further conclusions, more investigation and studies may need to be conducted.