Science, the media and an undiscerning public!

The lean finely textured beef (LFTB) debacle that's played out over the past weeks demonstrates the dominance of media bias, public relations spin and the power of blogs and social media over science.  Because of the way the issue has been framed, anyone from the scientific community or anyone at all who tries to interject facts into the discussion is put in the position of defending “pink slime”.

Most retailers and restaurants have bowed to consumer pressure and announced that they will no longer use LFTB. Unfortunately, they have little choice. The issue has become so sensationalised that consumers are demanding that it be removed from ground beef.

This issue hit home because we understand how the product has been misrepresented. We can see how the misrepresentations may cause irreparable damage to the manufacturers of LFTB and result in the loss of jobs. The issue is a setback for food safety and beef industry as a whole.

Red meat is bad for you? Burger off!

What is really striking is that the eat-meat-die-young panic keeps rearing its ugly head so regularly, based on study after study with equally feeble risk ratios and numerous confounding factors.

The most accurate answer to the question of whether red meat and processed meat are bad for you is this: we just don’t know. My hunch is that the health risks are non-existent – in practical terms, they are pretty much irrelevant – but given the difficulties of conducting this research, it’s hard to believe we could ever know if one particular type of food is especially bad for us. Still, that won’t stop the medics and the researchers from trying to enforce their food rules on us anyway.

Rob Lyons, spikedonline.com, commenting on the latest red meat scare. Do read his sage analysis refuting this and other scare studies

The food of the future

The world diet in 2062 or 2112 will be as unfamiliar to most people today as our own cosmopolitan diet of fast food and ethnic cuisines would be to our great grandparents in 1912. The new foods will be the result of fierce demand and resource pressures on food worldwide, astonishing new technologies, and emerging trends in diet, farming, healthcare and sustainability...

These emerging trends in food will surprise and even appall some people - and excite and motivate many more. Like our homes and clothes, our food is not frozen in time and, while our diet respects tradition, it is constantly in pursuit of novelty. Driven by necessity and impelled by our urge to discover new things, the next century of food will be the most adventurous and interesting in the 10,000-year story of civilisation.

The rise and fall of white bread

A Washington Post article commemorating the moment in 2009 when whole wheat bread sales surpassed white for the first time in US history explained this reversal. Growing awareness of the importance of the fibre and nutrients found in whole grains played a role, but so did status aspirations. Today, the article observed, whole wheat bread “signifies the sophistication of your palate, your appreciation for texture and variety…. The grainier you like it, the more refined your sensibilities. The darker it is, the greater your chance for enlightenment.”

"Buy small South African business" campaign

"The hope is – that as South African consumers, we become less seduced by big brands and their advertising illusion and rather start an active support of local entrepreneurs and small business.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about how government should be offering tax breaks, support, less red tape and all that good stuff to entrepreneurs, but the fact is that buying the goods that entrepreneurs sell is the only thing that’ll really drive this economy forward....

... for South Africa to prosper, it’s not the outdated notion of creating jobs that’ll do it – it’s the creation and support of a thriving entrepreneurial infrastructure. One where South African brands are exported to Europe and the US for a change – rather than the other way around.

Metal cans at the tipping point!

"There is a tremendous opportunity in developing cost-advantaged alternatives to the retorted metal can. ConAgra Foods processes more than five billion cans of food a year. We see the metal can at the same tipping point as the glass-to-plastic conversion was in the ’90s in the food industry.

"Plastic bottles were around far before the ’90s, but nobody had developed the equipment to produce the plastic bottle at a lower cost than glass. There were limited applications where CPGs were willing to fund the conversion, but it was based on product safety, not consumer preference. Companies didn’t really convert until the cost structure changed. Once it became a cost savings and the consumer benefit was an extra incentive, the plastic industry grew tremendously.

"We see this as another opportunity, but there is nobody really out there that’s developed the equipment that can form pouches and retort them at a lower cost than metal cans, or can produce a plastic package at a lower cost than a metal can."

In praise of prepared food!

"If American eating habits are really going to change in the coming decades, it will be because of innovations in chain restaurants and grocery stores, not because everyone is making their own chicken stock. The trends toward less time, less cooking, and broader availability of premade foods is irreversible, and efforts to fight against it are doomed, in most cases, to fail.

The new eco-issues that all food brands need to consider

"Q: Which food issues are consumers are aware of, and how will this change over the next few years?

A: Again, it varies market to market. Consumers aren’t completely disconnected, but often they think of the impacts of just the packaging itself. Whilst important, if you had to rate the material impacts in order, that would be lower down the list. But it’s very tangible and visible. What people don’t think about is the impacts of growing, production and food distribution as a whole. Certainly we expect brands going forward to help educate consumers on where the big impacts are.

If you look at what some of the leading organizations in this space, like Unilever and PepsiCo, are doing, they are starting to translate some very complicated messages into easier-to-understand messages for the consumer so they can start to connect with this. We’ll see more signs of radical transparency happening...."

On building billion-dollar brands

Fundamentally, great brands thrive during both good times and bad when they communicate basic human truths that speak to the needs and interests, concerns and dreams of the global consumer. 

Whether he or she lives in New Delhi, Melbourne or Houston, consumers have far greater expectations than did previous generations. Basically, they want an ongoing and enduring relationship with their brands that is governed by a set of core premises.
In an era where there is so much uncertainty and cynicism, there is a strong desire for reliability. When people spend their hard-earned money, especially when it is a discretionary purchase, they want to know a brand’s value proposition and they want to believe in what the brand stands for.

They want to understand exactly what they are going to get with each purchase and want to achieve and maintain a high degree of trust. When it comes to food or beverages, this goes to taste, experience and ingredients and an unwavering commitment to providing exactly what is expected.

PepsiCo CMO, Salman Amin, read more

Food allergies are not rampant

"Living with a food allergy or intolerance can be a huge hassle. So it’s surprising how many people think they have sensitivities to certain foods — and alter their lives accordingly — when they really don’t.

“Research shows that as many as 20 percent of people claim to have food allergies when the number is actually around 3 to 4 percent,” says Hugh Sampson, director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

He concedes that the number of people with milder reactions — nonallergic symptoms that flare up when they eat certain foods — is higher, but he thinks the problem is still generally overestimated. That’s partly because reactions to food can change over time. And various symptoms are sometimes mistakenly attributed to food when they really stem from something else."

Consumers Union of United States, read more

Technology will drive the natural foods business

"The benefits food technology brings in terms of convenience and palatability should not be underestimated – there’s nothing convenient about a coconut and there’s little that’s palatable about unroasted coffee beans. It is convenience and palatability that people want most – as well as health benefits – and those are two elements that many foods cannot deliver in their raw and natural state.

Demand for smart food technology will, if anything, increase because 'natural foods' with 'natural benefits' will increasingly mean foods that are processed as little as possible – often a hugely difficult task.

As a result, it is companies who invest in technology, not hippy companies and not back-to- the-land sandal wearers, who will most likely influence the natural foods business in the years ahead, for only technology will be able to resolve the contradiction that sits firmly in consumers’ minds: that they want their food and drink products natural and healthy and convenient and good-tasting."

Convenience, convenience, convenience

"For consumers, convenience is by far the most important dynamic, and will continue to be so over the next five to 10 years, according to any number of prognosticators. Consumers are willing to pay more for convenience as their work habits and lifestyles change. The same can be said even for shoppers in developing nations. It's a tradeoff many are willing to make, especially as disposable income rises in many countries. It's all about time, and the consumer would rather buy time than prepare food."