It looks like it may be time to break out the metate.
A new report from Yale’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute details the 450+ companies that have shuttered their business operations in Russia in rejection of President Vladimir Putin’s monstrous, murderous invasion of a sovereign Ukraine. As well as those who have not.
The report, which came in as a tip from L.A. TACO supporter Paola Briseño González after hearing it on the Expansión Daily podcast, shows a colossus of Mexican food conglomerates still maintaining operations in Russia.
Gruma, the Nuevo Leon, Mexico-based company behind such roof shingle-like tortillas as Mission and Guerrero brands, as well as the unfortunately ubiquitous instant tortilla flour Maseca, is steadfastly sticking to its plans in the Russian Federation. Gruma is maintaining two production plants in the wheat-heavy, kleptocratic Eastern European empire, resisting calls to shut down there or move its operations elsewhere.
The report divides a long list of companies into five categories on the corporate sociopolitical battlefield. At the top of the list, and surely Santa’s too, are companies defined as making a “Clean Break,” for suspending operations in Russia, exiting the country completely, or refusing to lend to Russia. These include such big and disparate names as eBay, Brown-Forman, American Airlines, Bumble, Crocs, BlackRock, and hundreds of other well-known brands.