Retailer concentration has shifted power (and profits) further down the food chainNo longer. Retailer concentration has shifted power (and profits) further down the food chain. But the retailers are not the type to swank around in flash cars. They are ostentatiously parsimonious, advertising their determination to keep prices down. Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, is in a converted warehouse. Tesco, Britain's biggest private-sector employer, has its headquarters in a Stalinist bunker in a nasty bit of north-east London. Beside the main reception its share price is proudly displayed on one of those blackboards with white plastic letters stuck on to it that you see in the cheapest sandwich bars. One of the manifestations of retailers' power (which also reinforces it) is the growth of private-label (ie, supermarket- not producer-branded) goods. In 2002, according to the Boston Consulting Group, own-label made up 39% of grocery sales in Britain, 21% in France and only 16% in the United States, but everybody thinks that, as retailing becomes more concentrated, America is going the way of Britain. Retailers can sell private-label only if the price cuts they offer mean more to consumers than a producer's brand. As own-label has expanded, so supermarkets have been taking all but the most successful brands off their shelves. “If you are a must-have brand it's fine,” says Dido Harding, Tesco's commercial director. “If you're a sub-global brand, life's much harder.”The shift in power to retailers has put pressure on producers' margins, hence huge programmes of cuts. Since 2000, Uni-lever has cut its workforce by 33,000 to 245,000 and dropped lots of minor brands as part of its “path to growth” strategy. Cadbury is the latest to announce big cuts: in October it said that it will be shutting 20% of its 133 factories and cutting 10% of its 55,000 global workforce. These cuts should help keep costs, and thus the price of food, low.Does cheap food make people unhealthy? In some ways. Hydrogenated vegetable oil, for instance—vegetable fat made solid by adding hydrogen atoms—is the nutritionists' current bête noire. Widely used as a cheap substitute for butter and cream, it is the main dietary source of trans fats. Trans fats are heavily implicated in heart disease; companies are taking them out of products for fear of lawsuits.Cheap food may also make people eat more. In a paper entitled “Why have Americans become more obese?” David Cutler, Jesse Shapiro and Edward Glaeser, a group of Harvard economists, note that, among OECD countries, obesity is correlated to the level of regulation: the more food laws, the more protected local producers are, the harder it is to import technology, the slimmer people tend to be. They reckon that is because of price: the less regulated a country, the cheaper a Big Mac tends to be. But it could be another factor: heavily regulated countries might, for instance, be places with stronger family ties where real meals have survived and people eat fewer snacks and less fast food.
Giving people bigger portions is an easy way of making them feel they have got a better dealFood companies certainly think giving people more food for their money makes them buy more. That is why portions have been getting larger and larger. In America, soft drinks, which used to come in 8oz and then 12oz containers now come in 20oz ones. As Dennis Lombardi of Technomic, a food-industry consultancy in Chicago, points out, giving people bigger portions is an easy way of making them feel they have got a better deal. “If I can give you an 8oz portion for $7, I can give you a 12oz portion for $8. The only incremental cost to me is the food, which probably cost 25 cents.” Everybody, therefore, has done it.Scientists have shown that portion size partly determines how much people eat. Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Pennsylvania State University, fed subjects macaroni cheese, some in 2.5-cup portions, some in 5-cup portions. The ones with the big portions ate 27% more, on average, than those with small portions but did not report feeling any fuller. Brian Wansink at the University of Illinois found that if you give movie-goers an extra-large bucket of popcorn, they eat nearly half as much again as if you give them the next size down, even if the popcorn is stale.Now companies are under pressure to stop selling people more for less. But it is a hard trend to reverse, as Mr Lombardi points out. “How about I give you a third less food for $1 less? I don't think so.”
23. Paragraph 1
24. Paragraph 2
25. Paragraph 3
26. Paragraph 4
A. Huge retailers force producers to cunt costs
B. Consumers like supermarkets
C. Technology helps reduce food prices
D. Food comes cheaper in larger portions
E. Chain stores provide better service
F. Bigger supermarkets offer lower prices
［答案］： CFAD
27. Big supermarkets can offer food at lower prices because they can buy in___
28. Some food producers have reduced___
29. Besides cutting its workforce, Unilever also abandoned its___
30. Buyers like bigger portion because they think they have got___
A. their workforce
B. huge portions
C. large quantities
D. their money
E. a good barging
F. minor brands
［答案］： CDFE
第四部分：阅读理解（第31～45题，每题3分，共45分)
下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题。请根据短文内容，为每题确定1个最佳选项。
第一篇
Oseola Marcaty
31. This woman shocked and inspired the world because ______.
A. she had managed to save so much money
B. she gave her money to African Americans
C. she gave her life savings to help others through university
D. she only spent money on cheap things
32. She managed to save so much money because ______.
A. she had ironed and washed clothes all her life
B. she had worked hard, saved hard and invested carefully
C. she had opened a good bank account
D. she knew how to make money
33. She gave her money away because ______.
A. she wanted to help the university
B. she wanted others to have the chance to become nurses
C. she wanted www.med126.comothers to have the opportunity to escape a hard life
D. she want to be remembered after her death
34. When her generosity was made ______.
A. people donated billions
B. hundreds of students got scholarships
C. hundreds of people put money into the fund
D. she was sent to university
35. Marcarty’s generosity indicates clearly that
A. scholarship funds are popular in US
B. Kind-hearted people deserves doctorates
C. Selflessness exists in human society
D. Poor people can donate as much as rich people
［答案］：ABCCD
