Organic and synthetics food and drink
Headquarters: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Regional Offices: Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore, Seattle, Dallas, Night City
Chief Officer: Olivia Forsythe
Employees: 147,000
Background
Petrochem's monopoly on the production of CHOOH2 in the United States meant that any surplus crop of Triticum Vulgaris Megasuavis, the wheat from which the fuel is made, had to be completely absorbed by the company. Having no additional incentive to produce more CHOOH2 in any given year within the walled garden of their American monopoly, Petrochem turned to their subsidiary food business, Continental Agricorp of Tulsa, OK, to answer this problem. Petrochem tasked the Continental Agricorp's American New Products Division with an important mission: find new ways to sell Americans more food than they bought the previous year. With each passing year, surpluses of T. megasuavis in the U.S. became larger, and the work of selling through the wheat fell increasingly heavy on the American New Products Division.
The constant pressure to produce exponential year-on-year growth, combined with a lack of oversight from their parent company, created an office environment so toxic that it seemed to eat people alive, only to replace them just as rapidly. What rose from this poison swamp was the cross-factional alliance of the New Beverages Marketing Director, Olivia Forsythe, and the New Foods Marketing Director, Lewis "Mr. Moo-Moo Burger" McAllister, each served by brand mangers loyal to them alone. In secret, in the
summer of 2040, they drafted a plan to cut out the ultimate middleman in their business: Petrochem.
They began to consolidate power—and over the course of three years they put half of Petrochem's American Agribusiness into the legal equivalent of a large sack and hoisted it over their shoulder. In preparation for their move they brought half of Petrochem's CHOOH-4U gas stations, lobbying, and research and development in-house. One morning, all affected staff were made aware. Continental Agricorp was no longer their employer, but Continental Brands was. While they were no longer affiliated with Petrochem, the move came with a tidy pay increase. In court, Petrochem's legal team in their home state of Texas argued that it was the greatest single theft of property, both intellectual and otherwise in recorded history, but the case was quickly dismissed. In a final twist of the knife, Continental Brands had stolen the judge, too.
Face: Olivia Forsythe
The Face of Continental Brands is Olivia Forsythe. To the public, she is the Kibble Queen, a persona created entirely by her marketing department. The Kibble Queen is best known as the mascot of their Oasis stores, which launched shortly after they "left" Petrochem to capitalize on the food instability created by the Time of the Red. Their business model was simple. If an Oasis was the only place to reliably purchase food and only sold their brands, then profit was assured.
Once an Oasis is established, the community is entered into the Oasis Community Loyalty Program. Pleasing the Kibble Queen by purchasing large quantities of foods or electing local representatives supported by Continental Brands earns points for the whole community. Likewise, displeasing the Kibble Queen by importing food from outside the community, growing your own food, or publicly organizing against Continental Brands results in a point penalty.
High loyalty values bring community-wide rewards like prioritized shipments of food, more chips in every bag of ChocoKibble, and upon first reaching Gold status a royal visit from a body double of Olivia Forsythe, throwing company merch from an AV-4. Low loyalty values result in punishments like lowered food quality and increased prices. Known enemies of Continental Brands hiding within the community will have old-fashioned "Wanted" posters drawn up and put outside their local Oasis, with point bonuses given for informing on their last known address. The worst community punishment is admission into the Discovery Program, which forces the community into testing a single new flavor of kibble by removing all other offerings until their loyalty score improves.
Olivia is a home-grown monster of the Corporate world, filled with malice toward everything that does not directly benefit her. She detests the Kibble Queen character and is rarely seen in public unless forced by her duties as a Face. She also unilaterally hates the brands she worked for on her way up the company ladder, with the exception the first brand she helped bring to market for Petrochem, Triti-Fizz, which she considers her greatest achievement. Habitually, she drinks six cans a day and does two lines of synthcoke in the morning. She hates the spotlight put on her by being a Face and wants nothing more than to slink back into the shadows of the Corporate office, where she's always done her best work.
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