CAPTIVE SUPPLIES

 "Captive Supplies". Is a practice among traders where buyers get to go into negotiation with their supplier. This way, buyers provides financial aspect in advance to their supplies which makes them "share holders" or "join ventures”. This practice normally goes on among meatpackers and ranchers. The meatpackers then determine prices and direction of the produce. (p119).

            According to the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, the Captive Supply became necessary "in the 1980's among some of the major meat packers and the ranchers, where the meat packers did maintain in company owned feed-lot or purchased in advanced through negotiation". With meatpackers now as share holders, the ranchers were left with no choice to determine the prices of their cattle. The meatpackers manipulated the price for their own gain.

       This practice of trading also took place between the potato growers and the major French Fries processing companies. Were according to Moulton warns about “sharecroppers” where companies supply potato farmers with potato seeds in order to determine the price of a potato leaving the growers no choice over the price of their produce. This trading is significant because it makes the buyers gain more profit leaving the growers at lost.