Classification of the food industry (Activity or line of business, Origin of

capital and
Magnitude of the company).

I.- According to their activity or line of business they can be classified into :

1.- Industrial Companies.- These are those companies whose primary activity is the
production of goods through the transformation and/or extraction of raw materials and
which in turn are subclassified into:

a) Extractive companies.- They are dedicated to the exploitation of natural resources,

whether renewable or non-renewable, natural resources being understood as all things in
nature that are essential for the subsistence of man.

b) Manufacturing companies.- Their main activity is to transform raw materials into

finished products and they can be in two forms; The first are companies that produce final
consumer goods and the second are companies that produce production goods and which
are then transformed into a final product.

2.- Commercial Companies.- They are those that are intermediaries between producer and
consumer; Its primary function is the purchase and sale of finished products and which in
turn are subdivided into:

a) Wholesale companies.- These make large-scale sales to other companies called

retailers, who in turn distribute the product directly to the consumer.

b) Retail or retail companies.- These are those that sell products at retail, or in small
quantities to the consumer.

c) Commission companies.- These are those that are dedicated to selling merchandise that
producers give them on consignment, receiving a profit or commission for this function.

II.- According to their origin of capital, they are classified as:

1.- Public companies.- In this type of company the capital belongs to the state and
generally its purpose is to satisfy social needs.

2.- Private companies.- In this type of company, the capital is owned by private investors
and the purpose is eminently lucrative.
III.- According to the magnitude of the company, various criteria are used for its
classification (Large, Medium or small) and these are:

1.- Financial criterion.- The size of the company is determined based on the amount of its
capital.

2.- Employed personnel criterion.- A small company is one in which less than 250
employees produce; A medium one is one that has between 250 and 1000 workers and a
large one is one that is made up of more than 1000 employees.

3.- Production criteria.- They are classified by the degree of mechanization and/or
systematization that exists in the production process.

4.- Sales criterion.- The size of the company is determined in relation to the market that
the company supplies and the time of its sales.

5.- National Financial Criterion.- For this institution, a large company is the most important
within the group corresponding to its line of business, the small company is the least
important within its branch and the medium one is the one in which There is an
interpolation between the large and the small.

The aforementioned criteria are not the only ones to determine the size of the company,
but if they are the most common ones used in the business field, other parameters can be
used for their classification such as the economic criterion, the legal constitution criterion.
among others.

HERNÁNDEZ Y RODRÍGUEZ, Sergio. Fundamentals of Administration Ed. McGraw Hill 2000.