This essay was written for an International Studies class, the topic we were discussing was globalism and consumerism.
The Making of a Frothy Sweet Frozen Coffee Drink
The end of yet another hot summer’s day is winding down, as I am on my way home, worn out from working, I pass by the Dairy Queen – something cold would be nice, I think to myself. Browsing the menu my eyes happen across the Caramel Moo Latté, and what cold be more tempting that a frozen frothy coffee drink swirled with caramel and dolloped with whip cream? But where do the items needed to produce my irresistible Caramel Moo Latté come from? Who produces them? Does Dairy Queen provide information about the Caramel Moo Latté and its other food products for the consumer to know?
International Diary Queen Incorporated was bought out in 1998 by Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated, who also owns such corporations such as Geico Auto Insurance and Clayton Homes, and is run by several franchise owners scattered across the US and the world. The headquarters of International Dairy Queen, Inc is located in Edina, Minnesota. As of the year 2004, there are currently 4830 US owned franchises, 570 Canadian owned franchises, and 327 foreign owned, which includes South America, Africa, Europe, Australia, The Middle East, China and Japan, Dairy Queen franchises. For the Southeast, the closest Corporate Headquarters in relation to North Carolina is located at Norcross, Georgia. Although I was unable to pinpoint and estimation of how much Dairy Queen bring in each year, because DQ is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated, and with the exception of subsidiary insurance companies, the income of the other subsidiaries were simply clumped together. Despite this, an estimate of how much Dairy Queen brings in a year is within the range of $1,913, 000, 000 in the year 2004. The Caramel Moo Latté is a new product as of March 2005. The Caramel Moo Latté comes in three flavors: Mocha, Cappuccino, and French Vanilla, and of course each is swirled with caramel and mixed with blended ice with a dollop of whip cream served on the top. The coffee beans are supplied by a company called Consumer’s Choice Coffee which is based in Louisville, Kentucky and provides coffee beans to over 15,000 food service locations.
Learning this information causes me to wonder about my relationship with Diary Queen directly. I believe it is more of an indirect relation being that I order the Caramel Moo Latté at the drive thru, I feel safe to assume the larger half of the three dollars and fifty-nine cents I spend on a 24 oz of this cold caramelized coffee drink goes to the owner of the franchise, and a portion then goes to International Dairy Queen Inc, which filters into Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated. From that, the suppliers of the cup, lid, spoon, straw, ice, caramel, and Consumer’s Choice Coffee must also be paid. It creates an image in my head similar to when a pinball, my money, is shot up and eventually filters down into a hole at the bottom, Berkshire Hathaway Incorporated.
In response to Robin’s thesis statement that "It is central to the successful operation of the culture of capitalism that the consumer be segregated or masked from the consequences of his or her lifestyle on the laborer, the environment, and on the way of life of those whose degradation makes his or her way of life possible" I would agree entirely. Finding out simple information about Dairy Queen, its suppliers, its earnings, and figures I thought would be easily obtained was a real search. The information was hidden within pages and pages of Adobe Acrobat files in jargon I could barely understand. It was almost as if it was written so the consumer would not understand and not care to understand as a result of the complication. Adding in the management of foreign currency, employee payment and benefits, taxes, maintaining facilities only helped to complicate the figures. When I finally came across what was more than likely the supplier of the coffee beans for the Caramel Moo Latté, Consumer’s Choice Coffee, even they did not have any information on their coffee beans – is the company completely Unites States based or are the beans harvested from another country? If so, from what country are they harvested, and are the workers paid fairly? On the Consumer’s Choice Coffee, the ‘about us’ section was certain to add that they were finalist for the ‘Award for Ethics and Marketplace Excellence in Business Practices presented by the Kentucky Better Business Bureau.’ Even Dairy Queen had a section were they went into detail about the Children’s Miracle Network, or CMN, a fundraiser for children’s hospitals. Information such as this seems like it may be a cover up for any practices that may be underhanded, such as the question of where the coffee beans comes from that DQ buys from Consumer’s Choice Coffee; it misdirects the consumers attention from thoughts such as that and redirects them to thoughts such as, ‘wow , this company is helping sick children’ or ‘the company DQ buys from was runner up for an award in ethics.’ I can say for sure that if I knew that DQ was doing something unethical in trade or work practices and I had heard it on the news, read it in a magazine, or even heard rumors of it, my Caramel Moo Latté would not seem half as tempting anymore.
The information provided by International Dairy Queen Inc, and Hathaway Incorporated regarding shareholders and figures such as profits, were scanty, hard to find, and/or hard to comprehend. It was pretty clear DQ has no concern for the consumers who would simply like to have some facts regarding the operation of their franchises provided to them straight forward. It took me hours of searching and several dead ends to gather the small amount of information I could about my product, the Caramel Moo Latté, and even that was not much.
© Caroline Alicia Harris
post script If you are the copyright owner of anything metioned in the above essay, I do have the bibliography os my sources if you need to see them. I choose not to post them on this site, in the hopes nothing will be reused.