## The Shelf-Space Mafia

When you walk down the cereal aisle, it looks like you have 50 different choices of healthy, competitive brands. In reality, you are looking at the exact same 3 massive conglomerates masquerading under different brand names. Small, healthier startup brands literally cannot afford to exist on the shelf.

### FAQ

**Q: Why only big brands? Why can't a local, healthy cereal get into Kroger or Walmart?**
A: Slotting Fees. The modern grocery store does not make its profit by selling you food. Its margins are razor-thin (1-2%). The grocery store actually makes its profit by operating as a highly extortionate commercial real-estate broker for 4-inch strips of metal shelving. To place a new brand of cereal at "eye-level" in 2,000 stores, the grocery chain forces the brand to pay a "Slotting Fee" that can easily exceed $500,000. An independent startup with a healthy recipe instantly goes bankrupt trying to pay the extortion fee. Massive conglomerates like Kellogg's and General Mills happily pay millions in slotting fees. They do this specifically to create an insurmountable financial moat, effectively bribing the grocery store to block any independent competitor from ever reaching the consumer.