SBSIST

SBSIST
logo
Food and pharmaceuticals company
Motto:	"The standard for quality"
Operation
Region(s) of operation:	Multi-system
Based in:	Ganymede (Jupiter)
Colour(s):
Historical information
Predecessors:	EuroSubsist, Pillar of Hope Ganymede Agriculture Program
Founded:	3282 as GanySubsist (723 years from present)
[Source]

SBSIST (pronounced /sʌb.'sɪst/, lit. "subsist") is a Ganymede-based manufacturer, distributor and retailer of various foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals designed for middle to low income consumers, and for basic income programs, military and travel rations, and relief aid programs across governed space. Its staple production methods are focused predominantly on insect and algae farming to produce edible bugs (including crickets, cockroaches, palm grubs, mopane worms, and etc.) aquaponic fish and vegetables, synthetic meats and dairy, and mycoprotein-fibre jelly. SBSIST pharmaceuticals specialise in tablet or intravenous-ready drugs for various nutritional and other biological requirements, with the latter including g-resist juice and anti-cancer pills

History

SBSIST's origins date back to the 22nd century with EuroSubsist, a non-profit food production program formed by various German domed cities as part of a Climate Disaster relief effort. During these centuries, EuroSubsist would develop specialised algae and insect farming technologies to produce low-cost, highly standardised foodstuffs, and continued until its facilities and staff were dismantled and relocated to be put to use in the Pillar of Hope arcology project. A handful of its key executives however saw a more profitable path in the newly established colony on Ganymede, and after heavy lobbying, managed to secure a grant from the Pillar of Hope project to set up a cluster of farms on the foreign moon's surface, where they would work as the Pillar of Hope Ganymede Agriculture Program (PoHGAP) in tandem with the pre-existing ESA colonial infrastructure to both feed the colony and send surplus food back home.

In 3282 PoHGAP was privatised, where it rebranded itself as GanySubsist. Little over two decades later in 3304, the declaration of the Union of Jupiter gave GanySubsist the opportunity to mop up a large share of Ganymedian greenhouses and smartly invest in the mass production of cheap, quality, pan-cultural edibles to feed the starving bellies of Earth's diverse people-groups.

According to mainstream economists and journalists - both then and now - it was the strong ethos of cost cutting and quality control held by GanySubsist's CEO Albretta Lang that allowed her company to rise above its competition, with her decisions seeing it dominate the moon and subsequently shape its culture for centuries to come. Rather than rely on local workers from Jupiter or the belt, Lang and her board of executives took advantage of the influx of Earther refugees with the institution of a large recruitment program that'd pay for the relocation of promising refugees to Ganymede to be put to work in its farms, providing them with basic dwellings and discounts for GanySubsist products. The investment was heavy, with Lang herself drawing from her own personal fortune to see it through, however the long-term returns were considerable, with the Earther immigrants' desperation to earn a living, lack of expendable funds, and often lack of other employable skills locking them in a state of de-facto wage slavery and loyalty to the company. In time, a large percentage of the settlements of Ganymede were populated by a new swathe of poor Earthers, with this swelling demographic of immigrants popularised in Jovian media as the "Eight-hundred Dollar Earthers". GanySubsist also focused most of its efforts on the cultivation of edible bugs and algae rather than maintaining a diverse portfolio of various crops and stock, allowing for the fast mass-production of cheap, nutrient-rich food bases that could be sold and consumed as-is, or adapted into various cuisines. Its direct involvement in each step of food production, from the farm to the table, also allowed rigorous quality control, which in part helped it earn a good reputation amongst the sea of otherwise mixed-quality algae and bug produce that plagued the system.

In the following centuries, GanySubsist's success would see it earn greater attention from IGSA and other state and corporate entities throughout governed space, with it striking various lucrative and sometimes exclusive deals to produce food (and later pharmaceuticals) for space exploration and colonisation, military rations, and welfare programs. To reflect this interstellar expansion, GanySubsist would rename itself SBSIST in 3499.