Food Consumption Patterns Part 2

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It is not clear whether Bongu is unusual in its use of these ingredients or not. A common belief
among merchants in Haiti is that the elite food distributors that have their own
brands--of which there are only four-- have no-compete understandings among
themselves. Put bluntly, the rumor is that they collude in an effort to monopolize
the market without competing with one another and driving prices and profits
down. While that claim is impossible to verify, there is, prime facie, little
overlap in their products. The largest company in Haiti, Gilbert Bigio Group
(owned by the Bigio family) has a food subsidiary, Huileries Haitiennes,
S.A (HUHSA) that only sells condensed milk, spaghetti, and corn flakes,
all products with a wide range of low cost foreign competitors. But it
markets no other products in the Bongu portfolio. Nor do Stanco,
Caribbex, and Arlequin, the other three, major corporations with their
own brands, have any products that overlap with Bongu. Only Stanco
and Arlequin compete directly in the Extruded Corn Snack market.
Figure 36: The only HUHSA
products that overlap with
Bongu (Cristo S.A.)
The one Haitian pre-packaged ready-to-eat-food brand that appears most often as a price
competitor with Bongu is the brand Bonlè, which has entered into competition with Bongu, cutting
the cheese price even further (33 gde versus Bongu’s 44 gde price for a box of cheese wedges).
Bonlè has also entered the condensed milk market as well and it has its own subsidiary brand of
Corn Flakes, Anita. But Bonlè is Bongu. It is the same parent company (Cristo S.A.), same
products (milks, processed cheese, and corn flakes among them), made and packaged in the same
countries (in the case of milk and Cheese, Egypt), with the same low quality ingredients (see
above) and the same dangerous colorings and preservatives (ditto).
Figure 37: Bongu Brand and Bonlé/Anita