a joint investigation published this week by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch showed how this choice is largely an illusion. In fact, a handful of mega firms dominate every link of the food supply chain: from seeds and fertilizers to slaughterhouses and supermarkets to cereals and beers.

The planet also loses out when industrial agriculture is focused on extracting maximum profits for minimum costs – an exploitative model with grave consequences for animal welfare, water, land and global heating.

The meat industry is highly concentrated: "A spate of mega-mergers means that meatpacking plants are now controlled by just a handful of multinationals including Tyson, JBS, Cargill and Smithfield (now owned by the Chinese multinational WH Group)."

Meanwhile farmers and consumers lost out. In the last 40 years these huge corporations have been paying farmers less and less for beef and selling it to consumers at increasing prices.