This week I take on the food industry in America. The more I learn about business the less I realize I know about the reality of my personal view on business. Being raised a vegetarian I have an incensed disdain for the processed foods served in the supermarket and I just cannot understand why people, children and adults, are so adverse to eating healthy food. So I will offer my thoughts on the corporate food industry in America.
The Economist (September 18, 2010) reports Harry Balzer of NPD, a research firm, saying “taste, value and convenience are the most important to the consumer (79).” My problem with the interpretation of consumer preferences by these food manufacturing companies is that companies such as Kellogg, Kraft, PepsiCo, and others create the taste, value and convenience consumers desire. These food companies, who, in effect, act as an oligopoly, need to make the food that is nutritionally good for us taste better to those finicky consumers, and make the preparation as easy as other food stuffs on the market, further reminding people that veggies cost less, therefore consumers can purchase more with their dollar.
My dad, master vegetarian chef of the family, used cumin on steamed vegetables and they taste so much better than vegetables that are served plain. I now spend $5 on a bouquet of veggies: broccoli, cauliflower, yellow squash, zucchini squash, asparagus and corn, spend five minutes chopping them up and another 5-10 minutes to steam them on the stove. Sprinkle some cumin and half the meal is prepared. Pepper tastes great, in addition to garlic power. Pour on vinaigrette dressing (not ranch), there are a number of ways to make something great for you taste great at a low cost and will not “inconvenience” the consumer much.
There was a time when the pre-packaged processed foods were a terrific, new item at the markets. Moms did not have to wait in long lines at the deli to get sandwich meat for school lunches and had more time to see Timmy’s soccer game. The turkey didn’t taste that much different and it stored in the refrigerator easily. Little did Mom know that jobs were about to be lost when the packaging process became automated. Now is the time to take a stand against the corporate automation by demanding less of the pre-packaged processed lunch meats, demanding more of the variety that comes from the butcher. This will work two-fold: a decrease in demand for the pre-packaged foods will drive up the price and therefore become less desirable to consumers (decrease in value), and the increase in demand of the butcher prepared selections will decrease the price, thus further increasing the value to the consumer.
There is little that is healthy about macaroni and cheese if it comes out of a box or if it is made from scratch. The reason the popular line of Macaroni & Cheese tastes good is due to the chemistry involved with the process. Cheese does not naturally melt to simulate “good” mac and cheese unless it comes in dehydrated form, filled with preservatives in a small package inside the cardboard box of enriched-(sugared) macaroni pasta. The food in that box will not taste like anything but the cardboard box unless the manufacturer includes all the chemicals made in the research and development lab. My eyes grow wide when I am standing in line at the supermarket behind a shopper with 20 frozen dinners from Healthy Choice. I wonder to myself “is your life so busy that you cannot spend a 1/2 hour preparing some food to eat?” No, he is just lazy. Perceived taste and perceived convenience will sacrifice good eating habits every time. Nah, perhaps I should say good eating habits are trumped every time by the perception of good taste and the perception of convenience to the consumer.
I know there is a middle ground between TV dinners and fully preparing a meal in the kitchen. Kraft, et al, is doing fine by Michelle Obama reducing the amount of sodium in foods (78), salt tastes good, though, and it is a natural resource, unlike most of what is in their food. I know my Morning Star weenies are filled with sodium because that is how you make something that is not meat resemble meat in taste and texture. Americans have high levels of sodium in the food eaten because that is how manufactures make a collection of synthesized atoms taste like beef or meatloaf when it really is not beef or meatloaf. The sodium levels in my family are at healthy levels because we don’t eat a majority of the food on the shelves of the supermarkets, we therefore eat all the salt on our food as we care to. These firms need to stop playing tit-for-tat game theory with the consumers who do not expect to be playing the game, our lives are at stake.
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