These 10 Companies Control Enormous Number Of Consumer Brands [GRAPHIC]

It may be obvious that Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes are both made by Kellogg's, but did you know that Hot Pockets and L'Oreal share a parent company in Nestlé?

A ginormous number of brands are controlled by just 10 multinationals, according to this amazing infographic from French blog Convergence Alimentaire. Now we can see just how many products are owned by Kraft, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellogg's, Mars, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, P&G and Nestlé.

(Disclaimer: We are not sure how up-to-date the graphic is. For example, it has not been updated to reflect P&G's sale of Pringles to Kellogg's in February.)

It's not just the consumer goods industry that's become so consolidated. Ninety percent of the media is now controlled by just six companies, down from 50 in 1983, according to a Frugal Dad infographic from last year. Likewise, 37 banks merged to become JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and CitiGroup in a little over two decades, as seen in this 2010 graphic from Mother Jones.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misidentified General Mills as the parent company of Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes.

See what the 10 companies own in the infographic below:

Comments

[georgelnj]

11:01 PM on 11/21/2012

they forgot Monsanto

[mr whiteffolks]

10:02 AM on 11/21/2012

Businesses in every category have sliced and diced America into 4 sections and they are in collusion to get our money !

[mr whiteffolks]

10:01 AM on 11/21/2012

Who knew !

[TheAlternativeMind]

07:52 AM on 11/21/2012

Im shocked that theirs ten. I though Phillip Morris was the parent company for all those brand, but I guess they only own kraft.

[Ive Cooper]

09:47 AM on 11/20/2012

And the mind numbing chemicals they put in there products?

[mr whiteffolks]

10:01 AM on 11/21/2012

You mean cancer causing causing chemicals !

[AmeenaJ]

01:24 AM on 11/20/2012

Stop eating pseudo foods and you will automatically be boycotting the mega-corps that are increasingly controlling our lives.

[phang10113]

01:17 AM on 11/20/2012

Yawn!

[DanDunlevie]

03:55 AM on 11/19/2012

These 10 Companies Control Enormous Number Of Consumer Brands: Many ethical issues develop from viewing this

[marcgreen]

12:23 PM on 11/18/2012

They left out Monsanto, the evil empire.

[Mark McGehee]

04:20 AM on 11/21/2012

The one ring to rule them all.

[James I Kirkland]

07:11 PM on 10/07/2012

The corporate takeover of society is a major storyline or backdrop for Science fiction. We went to the moon; let's not go there.

[David Mullin]

11:12 AM on 09/20/2012

If corporations don't pay taxes, what about all the corporations under those corporations (since each corporation is taxed individually).

[RegMac]

04:45 PM on 08/22/2012

So this is what trickles down.

[CraigInCT]

05:42 AM on 08/22/2012

I really wonder how many of the board of directors serve on more than one of these company's boards. #CrossPollunation

[eldafyre]

04:09 AM on 08/21/2012

I seriously wonder if any of these people commenting, that actually want action, say no to buying any of these products. Just don't buy them, its they only way you can show your opinion. I haven't bought any of these products for about six years. Ever. Thanks to 'shop ethical'.

[Ian McCullough]

04:09 PM on 08/07/2012

So, where are the laissez faire arguments?