22 Aug Consumer watchdog focuses on a new class of SA pies!
The Times Media consumer columnist, Megan Power, has taken RCL Foods to task over its new range of budget Pieman’s pies….
She writes….
….. I know marketing spin when I see it. So does reader Daniel Rossouw, a retired banker in Cape Town.
Trouble is, millions of less savvy consumers may not. This column speaks largely to them – and to manufacturers and marketing teams sailing too close to the wind.
Why? Because I feel shoppers are at risk of being duped. And worse, I suspect it may be deliberate.
When a pre-baked pie made of chicken mince is, to all intents and purposes, promoted, packaged and sold as a steak pie, I get suspicious. Why would a food manufacturer do that if not to fool people?
RCL Foods – which owns Rainbow Chicken – has launched a new range of Pieman’s pies for the “budget conscious” consumer. The pies are all made with chicken mince.
But two of the four variants in the Mighty Fine range are boldly labelled “pepper steak flavour” and “steak & kidney flavour”, with the only chicken reference – “finely prepared chicken pie” – buried in small print at the bottom of the packet, alongside the heating instruction.
Why so coy about the main ingredient? Is it because RCL is concerned that a steak-and-kidney-flavoured chicken pie wouldn’t fly?
Or is it because if shoppers think they’re getting steak pies – the most popular pie category – at the bargain price of R9.99, RCL would sell more?
The thing is, once a consumer realises that the brown-tinged “meat” they’re eating is actually minced chicken laced with steak flavouring, things could backfire horribly.
Like they did with Rossouw.
Knowing her husband to be a fan of the Pieman’s original premium pies sold for around R15 at his local service station forecourt store, his wife was thrilled to see another, better-priced Pieman’s range in the frozen section of a Checkers store.
She spotted the variants on offer – two of them labelled “hot and spicy chicken” and “mild curry chicken” – and chose what she thought was steak. But closer inspection of the packaging at home caused confusion.
Was Rossouw eating steak or chicken? After he’d cut into the pie, and discovered finely chopped brown mince, he was none the wiser.
“Is it a bird? Is it a cow?” Rossouw said.
“The reference to chicken does not feature in the main area of the packaging that catches the eye … As consumers we have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked by packaging and advertising that enhances our expectation of the product, but may well be questionable on moral and ethical grounds.”
RCL Foods was quick to point out to me this week that it used the word “flavour” after the steak description…..