What would the Man from Del Monte say to this?

On a recent trip to Birmingham for work, I happened upon this piece of street art on the wall of a building a short distance north of New Street Station.

Although more than a little faded and peeling, if you stop to look it is still recognisable as a tin of Del Monte fruit "In It's Own Juice" (shame about the apostrophe), with a mass of skulls arranged in the shape of a bunch of grapes on the label. A comment on Del Monte's human rights record, perhaps?


A bit of research on t'internet reveals that it is the work of the Parisian street artist Ludo, who has produced similar pieces of Warhol-esque Del Monte tins in Rotterdam and Los Angeles, as well as various others with fruit in the shape of skulls, which appears to be a recurring image in his work, "drawing attention to modern methods of food production and the legacy of our scientific manipulation of the natural world".

When it originally appeared on this Brummie wall in 2012, it looked like this:

I had initially thought it was painted on the side of the building, but like most of Ludo's street art pieces it is in fact a poster, applied to the wall with wheat paste, which explains why it hasn't weathered very well.

As for Del Monte, I have to say I was rather naively unaware of particular issues surrounding their ethics, but as a huge multi-national involved in the production and processing of tropical fruit I suppose there are bound to be some. And indeed there are, as this appropriately-titled article would suggest - rather more so than I can really cover in this post. In the interest of fairness though, here's a link to the sustainability section of Del Monte's website, so you can make your own mind up as to whether the Man from Del Monte is as nice a chap as he always seemed on the company's adverts, before they quietly retired him off.