As consumers continue to struggle with rising food prices, an unsealed antitrust suit involving Walmart and Pepsi and a report on Instacart’s algorithmic pricing model demonstrate the ways large food corporations charge different prices to different consumers.
Read MoreGrocery stores have many ways to show different customers different prices based on their personal data. Several states seek to ban so-called “surveillance pricing.”
Read MoreGrocers want to cash in on their troves of shopper data by selling more targeted ad spots online and in-store. But the largest grocers and food brands are poised to make the most money and sales off this growing trend.
Read MoreAs Big Ag gets into the business of buying and selling carbon credits, they also get access to lots of farm-level data.
Read MoreA frenzy of deal-making is remaking the food delivery app business. In January, UberEats acquired Ando, a food delivery startup founded by celebrity chef David Chang. In early March, Japanese conglomerate Softbank invested $535 million into DoorDash. A few weeks later, Grubhub expanded its partnership with the review site Yelp to facilitate ordering home delivery of restaurant meals. Meanwhile, the tech publication ReCode reported last week, DoorDash and Postmates have discussed merging.
Read MoreWhen Bayer first announced its plan to purchase Monsanto, most observers focused on how much power the two corporations already wield over agricultural inputs like seeds and pesticides. But Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s top antitrust enforcer, appears also to be focusing on how much control a combined Bayer-Monsanto would have over the data generated from private farms.
Read MoreAmidst farmer concerns about data collection by agricultural technology companies, agrochemical and seed giant DuPont on August 9th agreed to buy software company Granular Inc. for $300 million. With the deal, DuPont greatly increases its ability to collect detailed data on the operations of individual farms.
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