Big Food and Soda have a big sway over everything from what our children eat at school to whether essential workers get paid sick leave to how the world's food systems can withstand a pandemic. On all these fronts, we have seen an abysmal record of Big Food and Soda. And despite such massive influence on the world's public health, food, and nutrition, we can see very little of what the industry is spending and on what to steer public policy and politics in its favor

Corporations like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and McDonald’s generate some of the highest revenues from international operations. But outside of the U.S. and a select Global North markets, they hardly disclose any information on how they are attempting to influence policy, lobby governments, spend on political campaigns, fund research, and charity, or finance trade associations and groups that are pushing the industry’s interests. All of these activities deeply influence the politics of public health, food, agriculture, and nutrition policies, but also human rights, labor rights, and environmental justice.

Here’s just one example. These corporations use the United Nations' ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) – a long list of initiatives designed to address issues like poverty, access to water, plastic pollution, the climate crisis, public health, and more – to polish their image and position themselves as part of the solution to many crises that are exacerbated by the actions of corporations. Participation in such “multistakeholder” initiatives also allows corporations to gain access to policymaking spaces and influence the politics of food, nutrition, and public health. But our investigation, like many before ours, continues to show that corporations don’t track or disclose how much they are spending on these SDG projects, or what the real impact is on the communities deeply affected by their business practices

That is why we are calling on the world’s largest food and beverage corporations -- starting with soda giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, and the biggest fast-food chain, Mcdonald's -- to open their books on their global political spending and activities

Transparency is the first step toward curbing such toxic corporate influence. At the very least, these corporations should level with the shareholders and the public about these activities.

And this spring, some of the most aggressive corporations in global politics are facing shareholder votes that ask them to open their books globally on everything they spend to subvert human rights, influence public health, interfere in politics, and diffuse environmental policy.

Add your voice to the shareholders calling for Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and McDonald’s to get all their global political spending out of the shadows. Our food systems demand sunlight from the field to the board rooms.