Regardless of the specificities of the image of the Greek economy in general and of the deeper inequalities, caused by the growing economic crisis, the food and drinks sector keeps on being a sector of great stability, efficient investments and high profitability for the capital.
At the same time, it is a sector, where the enterprise antagonisms and the contradictions of the system appear very intensely, and as a result the aggressiveness of the capital is more obvious here than in other sectors of the economy, since its activity penetrates various levels towards different directions.
Thus, the food and drinks industries -always comparatively- show that they don’t follow the image of disintegration, appeared in other sectors of processing, at least, until now. They are modern, many of them came out of merger and acquisition procedures of previous years, they are extremely outward-looking, but, in any case, they constitute modern galleys of exploitation and oppression for thousands of workers, whilst there are many thousands of jobs that have already been lost.
Even if there are important changes in cadre of the processing industry during the last fifteen years, which had a real knock-on-effect on the participation of each and every one of the other sectors in it, the food and drinks industry officially appears to have gained only a small precedence over the other industries.
This image, according to the industrial production evolution study, is exclusively due to the fact that the Greek Statistical Service has not completed yet, the research on the necessary review of the Industrial Production Index and, as a result the review of the indexes that show the participation of each sector in the product, produced by the processing industries as a total.
However, even if we take into consideration the current data, there are conclusions coming up, which show that the food and drinks industry production appears to be growing, compared to other processing industry indexes, which testifies the importance of the role of that specific sector in the future evolution of the industrial production.
The food and drinks sector has all of the characteristics that appear to the other sectors of the productive activity. Analyzing the official data, we reach the conclusion that:
1. The commodity produced in the industry of “Food and drinks”, constituted the 15.51% of the total industrial production in the country, in 2000, according to the measurement system of the Greek Statistical Service. That year, the sector was divided in 12.3% food and 3.2%drinks. Review of the Industrial Production Index takes place every five years.
2. In the 2005 research, the sector’s index constituted the percentage of 16.89% of the industrial production, in which the percentage of 12.73% belonging to the food and the other 4.16% to the drinks.
Consequently, the years from 2000 to 2005, the sector “Food and Drinks” reinforced its own participation in the total industrial production, compared to other procession industry sectors. If we study the data, the improvement of the position of the sector is more owed to the increase of the production of drinks (0.95%) and less to the increase of the production of food (0.43%).
The following years, until the end of 2012, the production of the sector increased even more rapidly, compared to the total industrial production.
Especially from 2009 and on, when the severe fall in industrial production was registered, this specific sector had some losses; nevertheless those losses were much fewer than the ones of the total production.
There are two reasons why the sector did that:
First of all, among the products to be consumed, food and drinks belong to a category that the consumers cannot easily cut, even if the bankrupt of the popular household is uncontrollable.
The second reason is more connected to the consequences of the economic crisis to the trade balance of the country, in combination with the fact that part of the production is destined to be exported.
In a few words, the radical reduction of the imported food products registered led to increase of sale of domestic industrial food. At the same time that the production which was sovereign in terms of multinational companies in the country and whose main objective was the exportation of products in foreign markets, was kept in high levels.
At the base of 2005 data, the total industrial production of last November appeared to have a fall of 26.1%. At the same time that the respective fall for the food and drinks sector was “limited” to 6.4%. This means that the position of the sector, after the upcoming review of the industry index, is going to be much better, whatever that brings.
2. We have noticed a multiple division of the production units, as well as an incredibly high raise of capitals and concentration of the production.
In fact, there are a couple dozens major company groups, which define almost absolutely, the conditions of existence and function of thousands of small production units. The majority of them -not including the small ones, which function for the cover of every day needs of the households, such as bakeries and so on- function in a supplementary way, either producing the big productive companies of the sector, or making up work from materials supplied from them or as suppliers of the multinational companies that control the food and drinks trade. Small companies are those that employ 10 people at the most, and big are those that employ more than 10 people.
According to this data, a general conclusion is that the relation between small and big companies during this period hasn’t changed. The big ones constituted the 4.5%-5.7% of the total. Although, there is a reformation of the data in employment, where judging by the information registered by the Greek Statistic Service until 2009, the small companies appear to accept a more intense pressure because of the crisis, and as a result, they reduce significantly the number of employees.
3. This note, about the relation between small and big companies, testifies that, even if the amount of small companies is considerable, however, the big ones produce:
4. The data above might be interesting; however, the main characteristic of the evolution of the sector is not the relation between the small and the big companies, but the role performed by the biggest ones among them. So, according to the ICAP data, in 2009, the 20 biggest companies of the sector possess:
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45.8% of the assets
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34% of the turnover
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61.9% of the profit
On this base, the high level of centralization in the industry is obvious, though it is also obvious that there are still some considerable monopolization margins. This fact, though, might be true for the sector as a whole, but it is not for its sub-sectors, like the fresh milk sector or the diary sector and so forth.
5. The levels of exploitation in the sector are extremely high, judging by how it is appeared in the official data of their balance-sheets.
Consequently, in 2010, for example, when it comes to the sum of the industry, the average added value per employee was 45.117€, but as far as the employees of the sector are concerned, it went up to 54.104€. More than that, if we talk about, the big companies of the sector, the added value per employee went beyond 62.000€!!!
Finally, the profitability of the “Food and Drinks” companies keeps on being in high levels, even during the period of the big economic crisis.
What’s for sure, though, there are companies that, in this period, register damage -and how could it be different- there are others, whose balance-sheets seem to be…overcharged, because of several business games performed by the employers (like VIVARTIA). And there are the multinational companies that -as the competent authorities confess- falsify their financial data in order to gain more profit. The official data about the profitability of the bigger companies of the sector “Food and Drinks”, though, is revealing.
The sector “Food and Drinks” is an extremely important sector, nowadays, and it shall appear even more important, when the employees manage to change the socio-political balance of power, in the direction of overthrowing the power of the capitalists.
On this base, this specific sector under the control of the society, affiliated in the general plans and in contact with the primary production can play an important role in the food problem of the country. The socialized industrial units of the sector, which, under the central planning, are going to function vertically, in order to take utmost advantage of the society features for the productive use of the land and the constantly expanding production of agricultural products, are going to be a powerful weapon in the hands of the workers and the people rule.
