Currently browsing posts about: Food-marketing

The NCD [non-communicable disease] Alliance is a network of more than 2000 organizations in 170 countries.  Its purpose to to raise awareness of NCDs—type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and the like—among international agencies and to develop civil society capacity to prevent these conditions.

It has produced an interactive world map of examples of unhealthy industry responses to Covid-19.

Here’s an example from Jamaica.

This is an easy, one-stop shopping place to find out how food companies are exploiting Covid-19 to market products.

Make a note of it.

On Mondays, I like to start the week by highlighting ways that food companies are exploiting Covid-19 for marketing purposes.  But here’s Tejal Rao in the New York Times on exploitation of Black Lives Matter: “Food Brands Tweet #BlackLivesMatter, but What’s Behind the Words?”

She collected a group of examples on Twitter, from which she concludes:

As she explains, “All brand statements require some suspension of disbelief from the viewer, but particularly when they’re issued by fast-food companies during the coronavirus pandemic.”

My thought: If food companies really want to promote black lives, they can start with recruiting more employees of color, paying them higher wages, offering better sick leave and health care benefits, and supporting them with child care, education, training, and opportunities for career advancement.

Corporations did this for their employees at one time.  They can do it again.

Here are two ads sent to me last week.  Both have now been taken down.

This one, according to reader Tony Vassallo (thanks!) comes from the Walmart Supercenter Store 908 at 8101 South John Young Parkway, Orlando FL.  I’m not the only one who thought this was in bad taste (sorry).   After a Twitter storm, Pepsi took it down.

But what about this one?

I looked up Westbrook Mall: Calgary, Alberta.  This too caused an uproar.   The franchise owner apologized, explaining that he was struggling and hoped to generate business, and the sign is now gone, apparently.

Thanks to a reader, Tony Vassallo, for sending this Kraft ad: “We Got You America”

Given the demographics of who gets hit hardest by this virus, and increasing evidence that crowded food production facilities staffed by low-income workers who often lack sick leave and health care benefits, this unmasked cheerleading seems, well, tone deaf.

Q.  If you are running a fast-food place, how to cope with having to close and lose sales during the Coronavirus pandemic?

A.  Run an ad: “Stay Home of the Whopper”

Your country needs you to stay on your couch and order in…Do your part. Staying home doesn’t just make us all safer, it makes you a couch potatriot.”

Never mind that couch potatoism puts you at higher risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and, therefore, higher higher risk for the most damaging effects of this virus.

The company is also offering 250,000 free sandwiches to health care workers.

Thanks to a reader, who wished to remain anonymous, for alerting me to this one.

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore on Saturday and worth the trip it was.

Here is where to see—and taste—what’s happening in health foods: ultra-processed (drinks, crackers, puffs) and not (nut butters, smoked fish).

Impressions

This is a huge market: the exhibits took up three full floors of two buildings in the convention center.  I think I only managed to wander through about half of them.

The big news is hemp.  An entire section of one of the floors was devoted to CBD oils, pills, and balms, but hemp booths were also scattered throughout.  I didn’t see many edibles—just a few gummy bears.

The buzz words are “all boxes checked.”  I heard this many times.  My favorite example: hemp water (“hydrate your body to the fullest”).  Here’s its list:

• All natural
• No artificial flavors
• No THC
• No preservatives
• Gluten free
• Dairy free
• Sugar free
• Sodium free
• Zero calories
• Non-GMO
• Vegan

Everyone wants to get into Whole Foods.  When I asked small producers where I could find their products, one after another said this.

Plant-based products are on the move.  I tried oat- and coconut-based ice creams (not bad, but still can’t compete with the 17% fat dairy versions, alas).

I’m indebted to Mimi Griffith for telling me about an article in Food Dive about a new product Domino must think you can’t live without: Golden Sugar.

It’s “Less Processed” !

And, “bakes and dissolves like white sugar.”  Of course it does.  It’s sugar.

OK, so it hasn’t gone through the last stage of refinement to white sugar and has a slight taste of molasses.  But it’s still sugar.

Less processed or not, Golden Sugar is sugar; it is not a health food.

Domino is taking advantage of current advice to avoid “ultra-processed” junk foods.  The company must believe that you will think this is healthier than white sugar.  Not a chance.

I”m curious to know:  Is Golden Sugar any different from the Turbinado sugar Domino currently sells?  Does Domino think you will relate this to Golden Rice, the poster child for GMO’s?  What was Domino’s marketing team thinking?

White, tan, or brown, sugar is sugar—50% glucose, 50% fructose, 4 calories per gram.

Most of us would be better off eating less of it, unprocessed or processed.

The Rudd Center at the University of Connecticut and the Council on Black Health have produced a fascinating (to me, at least) report on food marketing deliberately targeted to Hispanics and Blacks.

The report finds overall targeted marketing to have declined in the last few years, but fast food and junk food companies are still pushing their products more heavily to minority customers.

It identifies the extent of marketing by company and target.

If you were wondering why minority groups consume more fast food and junk food and display higher levels of obesity, take a look at the targeted marketing data.