Food is a big business. This year’s Fortune 500 list of top revenue-grossing companies, ranked by Fortune magazine, includes a good number of food-related companies.
Wal-Mart, for example, topped the list at No. 1 again this year, making more than $485 billion in the past fiscal year.
The global retail chain flourished by selling goods at discount prices, but Fortune magazine said that Wal-Mart now faces the challenge of succeeding in a world “in which customers are fussier about what they eat and can easily comparison shop thanks to the Internet.”
Americans’ increasing awareness and preference for a healthy lifestyle has forced food companies like Nestlé and Kraft Foods to ditch their artificial ingredients, the country’s biggest chicken producers to phase out the use of human antibiotics in raising poultry, and restaurant chains to get rid of genetically modified ingredients and chemical food additives.
