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Brands to avoid (feddit.uk)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Mobster@feddit.uk to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

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Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share something that I’m hoping will help me when it comes to making better choices about what I buy. While this isn't about promoting European products in the first instance, it's designed to help me figure out which brands I currently use, but may need to avoid, so I can find better alternatives that are local, European, allied countries, or even values-led US brands if no other option exists.

Here's what I did:

Got the idea from Reddit: I saw a post on Reddit with a visual of all the brands owned by big multinational companies. Really helpful to see the visual but there were literally thousands, and I wanted a text list I could feed into an AI chat as a reference document.
Did Some Research: I looked up these multinational companies on Wikipedia which seemed to have a relatively updated list of subsidiary brands, focusing on the parent companies I wanted to steer clear of, like PepsiCo, Nestle etc.
Cleaned Up the List: I used AI tool to organise everything into a neat PDF.
Made It Easy to Use for me with AI: I added the PDF to a chat in Mistral so I can quickly check any products I see in my fridge or cupboard. The AI helps me spot any brands I should avoid. I can also just list the brands off using voice for ease/speed but accuracy suffers a bit. I may also be able to just take a picture but haven’t tried that yet.

The image is the output.

Anybody with access to a simple list and an LLM could do this. Been inspired by the excellent websites and resources others have made and posted here, which I will use to find alternatives - but I first needed to know where the problems were!

Im hoping this will make it easier to buy stuff that aligns with my values. Hope this makes sense and helps someone else too!

Edit1: added link to source PDF containing list of companies and their brands. You can download this and search manually to avoid any use of AI. https://files.catbox.moe/jtmcb5.pdf

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[–] synicalx@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why not just ctrl-f the PDF?

[–] antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Does the PDF contain all the products of all the brands associated with each top-level US company (owner)? If not, the LLM can help finding the connections between product/brand and US-based owner, given that it was trained on data about those relations. However, if the relevant training data is lacking or faulty, it could also sometimes result in wrong answers... (but with confidence!)

[–] synicalx@lemm.ee 1 points 5 days ago

Sounds like the PDF, assuming it’s accurate and current, is more reliable.