by Marion Nestle

Currently browsing posts about: Candy

Oct 31 2023

Happy Food Politics Halloween!

Halloween is about candy, no?  Here are four thoughts on the topic.

I.  From CagleWorld.com

II.  From The CandyStore.com.

III.  From Consumer Reports: What 100 calories of Halloween candy looks like. 

 

IV.  From my son Charles, who forwarded this, I know not from where:

Enjoy the occasion!

Everything in moderation!

 

 

 

 

Jun 22 2023

Dubious product of the week: Chocolate for breakfast

Chocolate for breakfast? Kellogg’s + Hershey’s collab takes cereal to new heights in IndiaThe breakfast cereal giant has joined forces with one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world to launch Kellogg’s Hershey’s Chocos on the Indian market…. Read more

When I saw this, I wondered what was new here.  We already have plenty of chocolate breakfast cereals, organic and not, most of them aimed at kids.

These, for example:

At best, these cereals have some cocoa in them, usually as the 5th ingredient or less.

I can’t find an ingredient list for the cereal aimed at India, but I did find one for similar products sold in other countries.

Chocolate is the first ingredient!

Candy for breakfast!

Yum!

Feb 1 2023

Annals of food politics: “Woke” M&Ms

I kept coming across this on Twitter, but had no idea what it was about.

I’ve always said food explains everything.  And here we are in the middle of M&M-inspired culture wars.

The New York Times to the rescue !

M&M’s, the ubiquitous candy brand owned by Mars Wrigley, announced on Monday that it would take “an indefinite pause” from its “spokescandies,” deciding that the cartoon characters with arms, legs and minimal facial features were simply too divisive for a polarized America to take…figures on the political right, including Tucker Carlson of Fox News, have criticized the candy as “Woke M&M’s,” owing to a series of cosmetic tweaks in recent years.

I love what the Times says next: “Here’s how we got here, to the extent that it’s possible to explain.”  Right.

The Times attributes this to Fox News’ sTucker Carlson:

In January 2022, M&M’s gave the aching feet of its two female spokescandies a break, replacing the green M&M’s heels with flats and swapping the brown M&M’s stilettos for smaller, more comfortable heels…“M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous,” Mr. Carlson railed on his show. “Until the moment when you wouldn’t want to have a drink with any one of them. That’s the goal. When you’re totally turned off, we’ve achieved equity. They’ve won.”

All of this is enough to make me want to run out and eat some M&Ms.

You can’t make this stuff up.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

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Jan 26 2023

Today is National Peanut Brittle Day?

I received an emailed announcement alerting me to today’s big event: It’s National Peanut Brittle Day, “a day dedicated to honoring one of our favorite uniquely American treats.”

Who knew?

The press release continues with some not-so-sweet news:  peanut brittle is yet another victim of inflation.

The chart shows the cost of the raw ingredients in peanut brittle has increased by nearly 18% — from just under $0.38 per pound in early 2021 to nearly $0.46 cents today.


Other cost increases: transportation, energy, labor add up to “a recipe for expensive candy!”

A strange press release, but an interesting commentary on what’s happening with prices.

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For 30% off, go to www.ucpress.edu/9780520384156.  Use code 21W2240 at checkout.

Mar 31 2022

Marketing works! A post stolen (OK, with permission) from ConscienHealth

I am a big fan and daily reader of ConscienHealth, mainly because its producer, Ted Kyle, invariably and consistently has something interesting to say about whatever he is writing about (obesity and health, usually).

I liked this one so much—it sounds just like something I would say—that I asked his permission to reproduce it.  He agreed.  Enjoy!

Controlled Study Shows How to Sell Less Easter Candy (if you click on the link, you can find the place to subscribe or comment)

Not every study in PLOS Medicine is thoroughly impressive, but this one is pure genius. Researchers at the University of Oxford have discovered that if grocers don’t promote Easter candy, they will sell less of it. But wait, there’s more. Those same researchers showed that promoting “healthy items” – like low fat potato chips – yields higher sales for those health-promoting snacks.

PLOS Academic Editor Jean Adams obviously recognized the genius of this research by Carmen Piernas, Georgina Harmer, and Susan Jebb. So she published an opinion paper alongside them, praising it. She says:

“Piernas and colleagues’ studies add to the accumulating evidence that restricting marketing on less healthy foods and encouraging marketing on healthier foods may be an effective way to support public health.”

But she also lamented the fact that implementation of tighter regulation of food marketing is slow to come. She calls it “a sad indictment of our collective inability to create a world that supports everyone to eat in the way they want to, rather than the way the marketers want for us.”

Easter Egg Hunts and a Trip to the Zoo

There’s a lot of great material in this trifecta of medical research and commentary. Adams tells us that supermarkets are out of control:

“The concentration of food marketing in grocery stores can feel particularly overwhelming with parents describing the ‘temptation’ as ‘like a trip to the zoo every week’ for their children.”

Seeing the brilliance of this research and commentary, headline writers got into the spirit. Our favorite:

Hiding Easter eggs better in supermarkets could rescue UK’s waistlines, Oxford study claims

Clearly, journalists understand how to capture the essence of serious public health science.

Actual Health Outcomes?

Crispy Fruit

Crispy Fruit, photo by Ted Kyle

There’s just one tiny gap in this beautiful story. None of this research offers any evidence of healthier waistlines. It presumes that selling less Easter candy and more low-fat chips will cause waistlines to shrink.

Good luck with that. For decades now, food marketers in the U.S. have been selling us all kinds of food with claims that it’s healthy stuff to eat. Sales boomed and obesity kept rising. Onward and upward.

So count us skeptical that selling more low-fat chips and a little less Easter candy will put a dent in the UK problem with obesity.

Click here for the Easter candy study and here for the study of merchandising for low-fat chips. For the commentary by Adams, click here. And if this screed hasn’t been enough, click here for our further thoughts on the quest for a sustainable, nourishing, food supply.

Nov 3 2021

Annals of marketing: promoting snacks

The best way to add unnecessary calories to your diet is to snack.

Snacks are often ultra-processed junk foods; they add calories in ways you don’t notice (“you can’t eat just one”).

Their sellers’ intention is to get you to eat them and not notice.  These are hugely profitable products.

Here are a few recent items about selling snack products.

Will eating “healthier” snacks help you avoid “Covibesity” [referring to pandemic weight gain, I guess]?  Not if they encourage you to take in more calories than you need.

Will eating sustainable snacks make you healthier?  I got an e-mail from a marketer at Mondelez telling me that the company is focusing on sustainable snacks and that a “Mondelez exec also just made presentation at Alliance Bernstein conf. where he discussed there will be more invest in digital marketing personalization to drive sales” [Sustainable snacks have calories, and increased sales mean increased calories].

How about starting your snacks in the morning?  Hershey, America’s largest confection company, is trying to gain market share by rolling out products designed for morning consumption. “We see this as a potential growth lever and way for us to potentially capture more total snacking occasions across all dayparts,” In a press release, the company declared, “Let’s face it, we’re already having morning dessert anyway, so the Reese’s brand decided to make it official. With new Reese’s Snack Cakes, Reese’s fans can enjoy a delicious combination of chocolate and peanut butter creme without having to wait until lunch.”

Or, you can just eat candied cereal:

Oct 29 2021

Weekend eating: the food politics of Halloween

Halloween is about one thing only: candy.

Candy has a place in diets, just not a big one—added sugars are best consumed at no more than 5% to 10% of calories (for many people, that’s 100 to 200 calories).  It doesn’t take much candy to get to those numbers.

Consumer Reports has a helpful report on what 100 calories looks like: 13.6 candy corn kernels (see note at end) and 2.3 Hershey’s miniatures.

The candy industry doesn’t think you eat enough.  Candy, it says, fuels the U.S. economy.

Making chocolate, candy, gum and mints, our industry plays an important role in the U.S. economy. We create good-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector in the U.S., and support thousands of additional American jobs as we sell our products in the marketplace, and source our ingredients, packaging and transportation. Additional jobs, known as induced jobs, are supported through the re-spending of wages throughout the supply chain.

Not only that, but candy is an essential part of health and wellness lifestyles (the candy industry’s at least):

The National Retail Federation predicts that this fall “consumer spending on Halloween-related items is expected to reach an all-time high of $10.14 billion, up from $8.05 billion in 2020.” Of this total, spending on candy is estimated to reach $3 billion, up from $2.14 billion.

Trick or Treat?  Enjoy the Halloween weekend.

A note on candy corn

It would never occur to me that anyone would care, but how’s this for candy-industry research:

While there is some debate about the best way to enjoy this classic Halloween candy, most Americans say they enjoy the whole piece of candy corn at once (52%), while 31% of people start at the narrow white end and 17% of people start with the wider yellow end.

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Sep 8 2021

Marketing strategy of the week: impulse buys

As I discussed in my book, What to Eat, the entire purpose of a grocery store or supermarket is to encourage sales, particularly impulse buys of profitable items.  Food and beverage companies pay stores to place their most profitable products where customers can most easily see them.

This makes checkout counters prime grocery real estate.

Mars Wrigley tells you how this works.

Mars Wrigley showcases new impulse shopping solutions and products

Mars Wrigley said its multifaceted merchandising solutions will shape impulse throughout the shopper journey and provide an effective retail experience, be it at curbside pick-up, online or in-store.

The company is set to work alongside retail partners to implement solutions that reimagine impulse at checkout and identify new spaces in aisle and digitally to optimise category presence and drive conversion [i.e., sales].

Spearheading this growth is its new Accelerating Impulse Moments (AIM) insights platform. This four-pillar platform consists of conversion strategies for retailers across all channels in stores and online, with Snacks Aisle Optimization, Secondary Display Growth, Transaction Zone Reinvention and Digital Solutions Execution.

These strategies will help retailers shape impulse throughout the shopper journey to create an effective and engaging omni-channel experience.

Comment: You are the subject of this “effective and engaging omni-channel experience.”  This may look as if it is about helping grocers market products, but it is really about getting you to buy candy and chewing gum.