According to a 2001 study by Dairy Foods, Brie cheese was the sixth fastest growing natural cheese in retail supermarkets. However, Brie was one of the three top grossing cheeses during the same time. In supermarkets, brie is packaged in a wooden box of either a one or two kilogram wheel (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2001).
The food supermarkets in the United States that offer brie cheese, and sit at the end of the commodity chain, have been at the forefront of public shaming for years. This has to do with several factors, however the one that trumps all others is sex-discrimination in terms of wages and promotion opportunities. As the United States becomes a more progressive country and groups across it fight for equality, there are still tons of instances where sex discrimination happens in the work places and one of the most notable ones is with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is notorious for having poor customer service and treating its employees poorly undoubtedly leads to that. Just a couple of years ago a huge sex-discrimination lawsuit was filed against Wal-Mart that was heard at the Supreme Court. The purpose of this case was to determine if a class action lawsuit by over 1.5 million female employees could be filed against the company. This was on the basis of sex-discrimination on wages and promotion opportunities. Unfortunately, the case was denied by the Supreme Court, even though substantial evidence was provide that women held 70% of the hourly jobs at Wal-Mart and only 33% of the management positions and that female employees were paid substantially less than their male counterparts that worked in the same roles. However, it did leave room for smaller lawsuits against the company to take place. While this wasn’t a victory against the supermarket giant, it acted as a notice that Wal-Mart needs to get their business in order or else the smaller suits will come and come in bunches (Barnes, 2011).