Does Taco Bell really have the power to make the kinds of changes the CIW is demanding?
Taco Bell claims that it purchases only a small percentage of Florida’s overall tomato production, and therefore has only a limited influence over its suppliers. By making this claim, Taco Bell is, intentionally or otherwise, obscuring the reality of its purchasing arrangements. In truth, the amount purchased specifically by Taco Bell is rendered immaterial by the fact that Taco Bell’s relationship to its suppliers is mediated by Yum’s purchasing coop, the UFPC. Consequently, the price Taco Bell pays for its tomatoes is determined, through volume discounts, by the collective purchasing power of all five of Yum’s major brands, not by the amount Taco Bell consumes on its own. That is precisely the reason for the UFPC’s existence, or any purchasing cooperative, for that matter. As such, the only figure of any real value is the collective demand of Yum’s five brands for tomatoes purchased from Florida-based suppliers, a figure Taco Bell has yet to release.
