回答{TSE}题： How Technology Pushes Down Price 1 Prices have fallen in the food business because of advancesin food production and distribution technology. Consumers have benefitedgreatly from those advances. People who predicted that the world would run outof food were wrong. We are producing more and more food with less and lesscapital. Food is therefore more plentiful and cheaper than it has ever been.Spending on food compared with other goods has fallen for many years, and continuesto drop. 2 Supermarkets have helped push down prices mainly because oftheir scale. Like any big business, they can invest in IT systems that makethem efficient. And their size allows them to buy in bulk. As supermarkets getbigger, the prices get lower. 3 Huge retail companies such as WaI-Mart have tremendous powerand they can put pressure on producersto cut their margins. As a result, some producers have had to make cuts. Inrecent years,Unilever has cut its workforce by 33, 000 to 245, 000 and droppedlots of its minor brands as part of its 'path to growth' strategy.Cadbury has shut nearly 20 percent of its 133 factories and cut 10 percent ofits 55, 000 global workforce. These cuts help keep costs down, and the price offood stays low. 4 Does cheap food make people unhealthy? Cheap food mayencourage people to eat more. Food companies certainly think that giving peoplemore food for their money makes them buy more. Giving people bigger portions isan easy way of making them feel they have got a better deal. That is whyportions have got larger and larger. In America, soft drinks came in 8oz (225g)cans in the past, then 12oz (350g), and now come in 20oz (550g) cans. If acompany can sell you an 8oz portion for $ 7, they can sell you a 12oz portionfor $ 8. The only extra cost to the company is the food, which probably costs25 cents. 5 Now companies are under pressure to stop selling biggerportions for less money. But it is hard to change the trend. {TS}Paragraph 1__________