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I am not a football fan and missed the Super Bowl but I gather it was a hotbed of food politics due to Bud Light’s Game of Thrones’ commercial accusing competitors of using—horrors—corn syrup in the brewing process.

To be clear, Bud Light is not brewed with corn syrup, and Miller Lite and Coors Light are. pic.twitter.com/x6tWqdSRXN

— Bud Light (@budlight) February 3, 2019

As Ed Mazza put it (Huffington Post), this has to be the weirdest twitter storm ever.   Corn growers and the Corn Refiners Association versus Bud Light?

Weird, indeed.  Who could possibly care?

Bud Light’s marketing people, I guess.

They love the fuss, and put a full page ad in the New York Times to celebrate.

It says “In the Bud Light Kingdom we love corn too! Corn on the cob, corn bread, popcorn—( just don’t brew with the syrup (what you also call ‘dextrose’)…But, even though corn syrup is less expensive, we brew with rice, along with the finest hops, barley, and water, because I’m the King and it’s not my job to save money.”

Oh please.

To make beer, you need yeast.  To get yeast to grow, you have to feed them some kind of sugar.  This could be corn syrup (corn glucose is called dextrose), some other glucose-containing sugar like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or sucrose, rice (yeast converts its starch to glucose, or barley treated to convert its starch to maltose (two glucose molecules bonded together) and then to glucose.  Regardless of the source of glucose, yeast metabolizes it to alcohol and characteristic flavor components.

I imagine that adding a bit of corn syrup speeds up the process, but so what?  Bud Light wants you to think that using rice instead of corn syrup makes it better than other beers.

I’m not much of a beer drinker, so I leave that one up to you.

This is about playing on public distrust of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which isn’t even at issue here.

The real problem with corn syrup.  The Corn Refiners Association, which pushes it and HFCS.

We would all be better off eating less sugar(s) of any kind, no matter where they come from.

The documents (thanks largely to The Hagstrom Report)

• New Food Economy
• National Corn Growers Association’s tweet
• Forbes – “Corn syrup: How Bud Light made it a Super Bowl battle”
• Fortune – “’Disappointed in You’: Corn Farmers Were Not Amused With Bud Light’s Super Bowl Commercial”
• People – “Miller Lite claps back at Bud Light’s ‘unfortunate’ corn syrup Super Bowl ad”
• CNBC – “Beware of corn syrup? Bud Light Super Bowl ad shames Miller Lite, Coors Light for using it, but dietitians say it’s not that bad”

From the daily industry newsletter, BakeryAndSnacks.com, I learned that “free from” is an entire marketing category.  Here is its collection of recent articles and videos on the topic.

Special Edition: The rise of free from

What is driving the free-from trend – grain-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, sugar-free, fat-free, and so forth – and will it have legs? Which businesses are already tapping demand for free-from snacks and bakery products? We look at the alternatives the traditional snack ingredients, and who supplies them. Also, a peak into the manufacturing challenges in creating snacks and baking in the free-from category.

• The unprecedented rise of free from: The free from sector was conceived for – and remains vital to – millions of consumers who deal with allergies, intolerances and related conditions, but today, the movement has evolved into something far more complex encompassing a host of consumer interests from health (free from sugar, fats, calories) to vegan (free from any animal products) to ethical (free from plastic)… Watch now
• It’s a wrap: Gluten-free beetroot wrap ‘bang on-trend’, says Warburtons exec: The UK’s oldest national bread company has launched a gluten-free beetroot wrap that it claims is the first of its kind in the UK gluten-free bakery market… Watch now
• Gluten free offers foil to UK’s high consumption of wheat-based mainstream bread, says founder of Genius Gluten Free: Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne of Genius Gluten Free believes that – overall – UK consumers eat too much bread, which opens opportunities for nutritious non-wheat alternatives… Watch now
• The demand for products with dual or multiple free-from labeling is growing: The rise of free from is throwing up unique challenges for manufacturers in that, often products that replace allergens can have an allergen classification themselves, like nuts to provide protein and fat content; or eggs or milk to bind ingredients in gluten free. We spoke to Verity Clifton, applications technologist at specialist ingredients company Thew Arnott, to find out more… Read
• Gluten-free children snacks are not nutritionally better than regular alternatives, Canadian researcher finds: Gluten-free snacks targeted at children – often perceived as healthy – can be just as nutritionally poor as their regular counterparts, according to Canadian researcher Charlene Elliott… Read
• FPF continues campaign to identify hazardous chemicals in plastic packaging: The fight to eliminate hazardous chemicals in plastic packaging is not over with the Food Packaging Forum (FPF) submitting its latest research to the scientific journal ‘Science of the Total Environment’, this month… Read
• Paleo granola startup rebrands for grain-free consumers: Chicago-based granola startup Paleo Scavenger has rebranded itself as Within Without to capture the growing number of US consumers going grain-free… Read
• Purezza wins investment to set up vegan cheese-alternative facility: UK vegan pizza company Purezza is planning to set up a facility to produce a dairy-free mozzarella cheese alternative after winning a £35,000 ($45,500) prize from Bran Investments… Read
• Edlong showcases dairy-free range at IFT: Illinois-based Edlong showcased a handful of its 250+ dairy-free flavors at the IFT expo last week, highlighting a national trend in consumer demand for vegan options… Read

Center for Science in the Public Interest has produced a new report:

It’s a lavishly illustrated and well documented investigative report into soda company marketing in developing countries.

Here’s an example of the documentation, enough to explain why Coke and Pepsi are pouring billions of dollars into bottling plants and marketing in India:

For anyone interested in the nutrition transition from undernutrition to overnutrition in developing countries, this report is a must read.  Actually, it’s a must read for anyone who cares about diet and health.  If you do nothing else, look at the marketing illustrations from Nepal, Indonesia, or Nigeria.  They tell the story on their own.

Alexandra Jones, of the University of Sydney’s George Institute for Global Health, was kind enough to forward the promotional activities of V, a New Zealand energy drink, on college campuses during orientation week.

These, to say the least, got my attention.

According to the company’s promotional materials (take a look!), it wants colleges to agree to let it:

• Put used textbooks into college libraries that V carves out with V-shaped holes.
• Give prizes including free product, cash, and “life-hack” recommendations such as “sneak booze into anywhere by hollowing out a baguette.”
• Appoint brand ambassadors to hand out sample cans like “an energetic Christmas charity drive”
• Conduct ongoing activities throughout the academic year including sending “sneaky ninja staff” into campus libraries to hide V promotions and prizes among the “less helpful, less exciting actual books.”

Here’s how:

We’re going to take an elephant-load of used textbooks and cut a V-shaped hole in the pages.  We’ll put in fake V cans with a super mysterious mystery prize in it.  Most of the time it’ll be free Vs.  Sometimes it’ll be a fistful of cash, but they’ll always have a life-hack recommendation with it.  For example, if it’s a beginner’s Spanish book, the hack says,”¿le gustaria ir a cenar?” is how you say, “would you like to go to dinner,” in Spanish.  As the hot girl/guy in your class and use this $500 for some fancy tapas and sangria (Spanish food).

I suppose this is meant to be funny and $500 ought to be enough for a good dinner, even at inflated Sydney restaurant prices.

Will librarians be amused?

The faculty, understandably, is not.

The campaign has been pitched to Sydney Uni.  Will the university agree to it?

The mind boggles.

Addition, Feb 25: Here’s an article about this.

The Washington, DC-based Center for Science in the Public Interest also operates in Canada.  It issued a comment on the recent Canadian election.

Newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has four years to implement his public health nutrition commitments.  He and his party have pledged to:

• Introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children, similar to those now in place in Quebec
• Bring in tougher regulations to eliminate trans fats, similar to those in the U.S., and to reduce salt in processed foods
• Improve food labels to give more information on added sugars and artificial dyes in processed foods
• Make additional investments of $40 million for Nutrition North and $80 million for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Sounds like a new era indeed.  This will be interesting to watch.