Big name consulting firms are enjoying a fee fest in the food industry.

CEOs and Boards keep showing up to their party.

“Conspicuous consumption” is a term that means “expenditures on a lavish scale to enhance one’s prestige”.

It isn’t just a very expensive sports car visibly parked in the company lot.

It may also be the name of a big expensive firm appearing on documents and ledgers to signal corporate prestige and status to competitors, shareholders and the industry…

…while providing psychological comfort and career cover for those engaging them.

None of these big consulting firms incur financial risk or penalty for destroying billions in corporate value.

There are no refunds.

Do CEOs and Boards see the irony?

Hundreds of millions of dollars are blacked out or buried in reports for a reason:

King-size consulting fees are not producing king-size business results.

Food companies are rushing to the same exits, caught up in cost cutting and acquisitions.

These are not growth strategies.

Deadly problems remain: Low business innovation, obsolete growth engines unable to preserve investor or consumer interest…

…and most of all, failure to prepare for the impacts of future industry events on their organizations.

For that, food companies need a firm that doesn’t paint itself as the solution to every thorny problem with a work order change and new fee structure when the last project ends.

A firm that doesn’t spend a large portion of your money publishing trademarked reports that have nothing to do with your company issues or our industry.

The story is growing more tiresome with every quarter: Bland results and share losses from food companies with big consultant alliances.

Wall Street is growing disillusioned with the fee fest.

Aren’t you?