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:
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.
Two new Index Systems rank countries for sustainability and corporations for promoting health.
The Economist and Barilla have devised a new, interactive Index that ranks countries on the basis of food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, and the ability to meet nutritional challenges. Its scoring system goes from 0 (terrible) to 100 (perfect).
The top ten scoring countries are:
None of the scores is exemplary. The US rank is #26.
The Access to Nutrition Foundation (Netherlands) ranks corporations on their strategies, policies, and actions to address obesity and diet-related diseases in the US.
The overall rankings, shown here, are relatively low. Some do better than others on governance, products, accessibility, marketing, lifestyles, labeling, and engagement.
The highest scores are for labeling. The lowest scores are for accessibility.
Indexes like these are useful for understanding where we are. They should inspire us to action.
Campbell’s has just announced that it will divest its portfolio of healthier foods: Bolthouse Farms carrots, organics, salsa, hummus and dips, fresh soups.
Why? Activist shareholder pressure to make more money, faster.
These healthier-for-you products only generated $2.1 billion in sales last year, not nearly enough apparently.
While waiting for someone to buy them, or the entire company, the company’s new CEO plans to concentrate on “operational discipline,” which I assume is a euphemism for firing lots of people.
The CEO plans to focus on the money-making “core” products: Campbell Soups, Prego, V8, SpaghettiOs, Kettle Chips, Mlano, Goldfish and other such things.
As I keep saying, food corporations cannot be expected to be agents of public health as long as Wall Street investors call the shots.
Remember when Jeffrey Dunn’s Bolthouse aimed to make carrots “cool?” And kids would eat them if they were marketed like junk food?
I guess this strategy didn’t work, alas.
Since September, the New York Times has been investigating how the food industry markets its products in the developing world, and how this marketing is encouraging a rising prevalence of obesity and its health consequences. The series is called Planet Fat. This is the complete set to date, in reverse chronological order.
If you haven’t read them, this week is a good time to catch up. Enjoy!
India is “sitting on a volcano” of diabetes. A father’s effort to ban junk food sales in and near schools aims to change what children eat.
Dec. 26, 2017
Dec. 23, 2017
Dec. 11, 2017
Nov. 13, 2017
Oct. 2, 2017
Oct. 2, 2017
Sept. 16, 2017
Sept. 17, 2017
This session is on Practicing Food Studies. It will be at 5;00 p.m. Details to come.