Inspired by an exhibit called “Foodscapes” curated by architects Manuel Ocaña and Eduardo Castillo-Vinuesa, that spotlights the “agro-architectural” landscapes of Spain, I decided to venture out into the middle of Guadalajara to capture the scenery surrounding one of the many food industry enclaves that exist throughout the metropolitan area of the city. The exhibit showcased the ways architecture relates to supply chains in the food industry, from distribution to consumption, and I thought it would be interesting to explore that in a city like Guadalajara, which is among the most important food production and distribution points in the country.
Just beyond Guadalajara’s most iconic neighborhood, which was voted “best in the world” by the Danish publication Nørrebro in 2022, lies a far less glamorous section of the city where the beverage giant AB InBev brews Mexico’s most famous beers and a Chicago-based ingredients company churns out all sorts of starches and sugars for its international food preparation market. Only one Mexican company lingers among the two transnationals, holding its own producing edible oils and fat bases for several local brands.
Although separated from each other by huge fort-like structures, these three companies together take up vast swaths of real estate spanning approximately six square miles, each emitting copious amounts of pollution that rains down on the residents of the low-income neighborhood that flank the complex’s edges. Soot-covered cars and dirty building facades are inevitable in the immediacies of the plants. But the noxious fumes and offensive odors from industrial volumes of organic matter being processed can spread for tens of miles around, often reaching the “best” neighborhood and others.
AB InBev, which brews such popular Mexican beer brands as Corona, generated almost $60 billion in profits in 2023. Ingredion, the Chicago-based starch and sugar maker clocked in at a relatively paltry $1.7 billion, and while the only Mexican company on the block has no readily available financial data, we can assume it’s profits are a fraction of the Ingredion’s given that the global market for edible oils and such doesn’t even surpass AB InBev’s latest earnings.
Even so, the contrast between the immense wealth circulating through this tiny patch of urbanity and the poverty all around it is stark. These brutalist fortresses of the industrial food chain are indistinguishable from prisons on the outside, with interminable concrete walls extending for blocks and blocks, while just beyond them it is the people who are trapped in a cycle of privation and daily degradation of the air and water.
