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Show foreign inucsiors buying food chains Foreign Investors are buying into the American food system, not by purchas -ing vast farm acreage, but by obtaining control of certain cer-tain U.S. grocery.hotel and restaurant chains as well as food processing plants, a recent survey shows. A & P, Grand Union, Howard Johnson, Stouffers and the International House of Pancakes are among grocery and restaurant chains now foreign controlled, controll-ed, the study by the UJS. Department De-partment of Agriculture's Economic Research Service disclosed. Foreign companies own 14. U.S. foodstore chains outright out-right and hold a partial share in 9 others as of April 1980, according to the study by USDA economists Naaman Seigle and Charles Handy. These firms in 1979 rang up combined sales of about $19 billion, nearly 11 percent of total UJS. grocery store sales. Other American firms under foreign ownership include in-clude Keebler's crackers, Libby's, Peter Paul, Wishbone, Wish-bone, Seagram, Good Humor and Tetley. The firms provide pro-vide cookies, candy, sauces, tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages. bev-erages. The survey, published In the summer edition of the National Food Review and Farm line, both USDA publications, publi-cations, found that the first significant foreign Investment Invest-ment In the UJS. commercial food sector began with Ben-Ihana Ben-Ihana of Tokoyo, a Japanese style steakhouse in 1964. In 1975, 11 foreign -owned firms or franchises operated in the industry but by December, 1980, 44 foreign firms had franchisor or proprietary Interest In 48 UJS-. operations. opera-tions. However, there are two sides to the foreign ownership owner-ship question, according to USDA analysts. U.S. affiliates af-filiates of foreign firms use American farm products, employ UJS Workers, invest in U.S. materials and technology tech-nology and put a large share of their profits back into the U.S. economy. In the food manuracturing Industry, for example, they have reinvested reinvest-ed about 80 percent of their earnings in the U.S. in recent years. The remaining 20 percent was transferred a-broad a-broad as dividends to their overseas owners. Outside investors also provide a source of much-needed much-needed funds to finance growth, technology to modernize, mod-ernize, and marketing skills to Increase sales. Although total direct foreign for-eign investment in the UJS. has doubled in the last five years, the stock of UJS. Investment In-vestment in foreign, load firms Is still over three times as great, .USDA ;eco- -nom'ists say..'-'- - ; J - i UjS. food processors own affiliates and franchises in more than 140 countries. In Canada and Mexico, U.S. food firms account for more than half of all sales of processed foods. In Western European nations, UJS. firms hold 5 to 25 percent of the market. American restaurant and fast food franchisors have established nearly 4,000 outlets abroad. |