food chain

From food + chain.

• "With my promotion this month I will continue my steady journey to the top of the food chain."
• "He, too, was a meat puppet. Unable to make any decision without imagined repercussions from above, he chose to make none and instead passed his decision onto the next guy up the food chain."
• "At the top of the food chain is PJ's, whose pizza wins high accolades, and whose menu of fat sandwiches (a local delicacy that stuffs as many deep-fried items into a roll as possible) is extensive."
• "Finding realistic needle-moving signings is especially hard when clubs do not want to sell at this stage of a campaign, while you are eternally at the mercy of those with bigger teeth and sharper claws further up the food chain."

• supply chain
• trophic level