Country of Origin Is an Increased Risk Factor for U.S. Food & Beverage Brands

For anyone who doubted that a brand’s country of origin could be a source of political risk, the last couple of years have been a re-education. First, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked a wave of divestments from Russia amid sanctions, pronounced Western consumer backlash and Moscow-led retribution. Then, after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, the ensuing conflict saw consumers across the Muslim world vent their anger over U.S. support for Israel by souring on and boycotting U.S. brands. 

Morning Consult’s “country affinity” metric — which tells U.S. brands how closely correlated their own global favorability is with that of the United States — is intended to help capture and forecast these dynamics. Country affinity is not inherently good or bad: It can reward companies when and where views of America skew positive and pose acute risks when views turn in a more negative direction (as we saw in Russia in 2022 amid that same conflict, and as we saw across much of the Middle East in 2023). But across both scenarios, it can help those tasked with monitoring and ensuring global brand health better understand where they might have exposure to reputational risk not accounted for elsewhere. 

As we first demonstrated in 2023, our country affinity metric was highly predictive of how much Russian consumers would turn against a given foreign brand after Moscow invaded Ukraine (see white paper accessible via the link above). And as we then demonstrated at roughly the 6-month mark of the Israel-Hamas conflict in March 2024, it was also predictive of reputational damage to U.S. firms doing business in the Middle East following the outbreak of war in Gaza.

Food and beverage brands now face higher exposure to shifting views of America

While our country affinity work has consistently demonstrated a systematic relationship between American brands’ reputation and that of the United States, it can also be used to identify outliers — both at the level of individual brands and by sector — helping to identify outsized risks or opportunities.

Among the U.S. brands whose favorability we monitor daily as part of our Morning Consult Intelligence product, it was those in the food and beverage sector that were singled out for a negative shock post-Hamas attacks, meaning worsening views of America led to outsized declines in brand favorability. By contrast, in our initial industry breakdown of country affinity scores from 2023, the food and beverage category sat squarely in the middle of our sectoral ranking — neither the most strongly nor the most weakly associated with views of the United States. Now, however, when we look at U.S. brands, the food and beverage category tops the list of industries that have high affinity with the United States.

Balancing the forest and the trees

The above example about the food and beverage sector reveals both the strengths and limits of our global country affinity model, which prices in consumers’ views of American brands and the United States across 40+ markets simultaneously. A leading strength of our country affinity metric is that it can help brands identify systemic rather than idiosyncratic risk — for example, globally distributed shifts in consumers’ views of the United States and of U.S. brands that are both becoming more intertwined and more negative or positive, indicative of systemic shifts in risks and opportunities for brands tied to their country of origin. Conversely, the case of the Israel-Hamas conflict reminds us that market-specific relationships between consumers and brands often play a role, especially during a geopolitical crisis when media coverage is acute and consumers’ reactions to corporate messaging can be highly brand- and industry-specific. 

Continuing with the example of the Israel-Hamas conflict — when negative narratives around U.S. food and beverage companies operating in MENA countries stoked boycotts and negative buzz — our data offers companies reassurance that the risks to their brands are more idiosyncratic than systematic: Specifically, by looking at net favorability of three prominent U.S. food and beverage brands tracked via Morning Consult Intelligence (those same brands used for the above country affinity assessment) alongside net favorability toward the United States by region — rather than using a global average — we see quite clearly that shifting views in the Middle East are driving the uptick in country affinity. The Asia-Pacific region, which is also home to several countries with large Muslim populations, shows a similar pattern on a much smaller scale. (Users with access to Morning Consult Intelligence can dynamically analyze data on these and other brands via custom dashboards.) 

What risks lie ahead for 2025?

As we discussed above, strong country affinity is neither good nor bad. But with president-elect Trump poised to return to the White House in early 2025, we expect geopolitical tensions to both shift and persist: While the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict may ultimately be resolved in relatively short order, burgeoning conflicts with China could lie around the corner. And in the aftermath of the U.S. elections, favorability toward the United States among its overseas allies has already begun to become more negative, suggesting increasing risks for brands may lie around the corner in parts of Europe and Asia. By contrast, in countries where we expect warm bilateral ties with the incoming Trump administration — such as Israel and the Gulf states — brands may see upside commercial potential.

For brands aiming to stay ahead of the curve, we advise monitoring our U.S. reputation tracker (available to MC Pro subscribers) for quarterly reads on global, regional, and market-specific views of the United States alongside average country affinity by sector. For those requiring higher-frequency monitoring in the context of a geopolitical crisis, or for those seeking to conduct brand-specific monitoring more generally, Morning Consult’s Intelligence platform offers daily data to help guide such efforts.

Reach out to [email protected] for information on how to do so.