What kind of circus would you like with your bread?
Indulgence and EATertainment entice us everywhere as marketers compete for "share of stomach" and "share of wallet" in our stress-filled 21st Century. David Kessler has the story in The End of Overeating, Ch. 16, "That's Entertainment."
WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts. This afternoon, we're proceeding with a group review of David Kessler's The End of Overeating, started by Edward Spurlock, whose preceding contribution, on Ch. 15, is here.
The pattern, in paraphrase, is this:
Our lives are full of stress, with many people enjoying little respite. It's therefore natural to seize on any occasional moments of consolation, comfort, or -- at least -- distraction.
Opportunities to eat something are ubiquitous and, even on a luxury level, relatively inexpensive. And we have to eat anyway. So it's relatively easy to snag us into an unplanned indulgence or into "upgrading" a normal meal to make it a special treat.
Indulgence generally means -- as Kessler documented earlier -- more fat, sugar and salt. And again as documented earlier in the book, these ingredients tend hook us. We want to do it again. When the makings are easily available, indulgence -- food as escape -- easily becomes a habit that is diffifult to break.
And then, a still flashier treat may be necessary to capture our attention. Indulgence and eatertainment can become a sort of arms race. Marketers strive to keep up with the help of market research firms like Chicago-based Technomic Inc., which offers such reports as "The Pizza Category Report," "Understanding Kids' Menu" and "The Evolving Sandwich Category Report" -- if you care to to pay as much as to $10,000 for a copy. Not many consumers in that category.
Premium indulgence can really make money. Companies like Ben & Jerry's showed the way, this 2003 piece on an industry website explained.
...a multitude of consumers began to enjoy high-quality ice cream, packaged in cartons half the size and twice the price of competing brands. Starbucks, Seattle, confirmed the possibilities by convincing coffee drinkers to switch from $0.50 black coffee to $3 cups with exotic names...
Specialty processors use higher-quality raw materials to justify the higher consumer price. The cost of these materials is a relatively smaller percentage of the of the total cost of the product because the incremental cost increase is offset by a even larger price premium. At the same time, the production and the sales and marketing process, once developed, are comparable in cost to the mainstream product....[O]nce the super-premium product or brand is established, processors have the opportunity to send strong profits to the bottom line.
The "high quality ingedients" in "premium" also generally mean elevated levels of fat, sweeteners and salt, though the industry website doesn't happen to mention that wrinkle.
Another industry website offered these insights to European marketers in 2004:
Chocolate is the ultimate stress buster for many, taking a 43 per cent slice of the total spending on premium indulgence. After this categories showing the greatest growth are snack nuts, juices and bread. Bread has...benefited from the 'self-indulgence trend' as consumers opt for artisanal bread made using traditional methods and higher quality ingredients. Many supermarkets now offer a wide variety of premium breads from in-store bakeries.
Another piece of market research from 2003 (available only to subscribers, except for the table of contents, which from which I quote), reported among other findings that
"Indulgent snacking opportunities are growing...The role of packaging is vital.. Premium private label ranges continue to grow...Healthy eating trends threaten growth"..."Functional and convenience in premium will be important attributes"..."Young adults are the key ‘premium’ consumer groups"..."
Get that: "Healthy eating trends threaten growth" in the indulgence market? I guess the truth will sometimes out.
Certainly there's nothing wrong with occasional indulgence, even premium indulgence of this kind, as long as consumers have some idea of what they're getting. But it can be a shock to discover -- as I did a couple of weeks ago -- that the "healthy, multi-grain" bagel you just ate had almost 400 calories before adding the cream cheese or any other menu items!
My takeaway from such experiences: it's usually better to prepare my own indulgences from basic ingredients at home.
With an individual item like a premium chocolate bar at one end of the indulgence scale, at the other end there are restuarants that market themselves as a total indulgence and/or circus experience. Some offer curbside takeway for their high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt offerings, as Kessler describes:
"I don't even have to put on shoes," one satisfied customer told a reporter.
Or, there is EATertainment. Business Week highlighted this phenomenon -- pioneered by places like the Hard Rock Cafe -- in 2005:
Among the Vegas options: At Star Trek-themed Quark's Bar & Restaurant diners can munch on "hamborgers" and "final frontier" desserts while seated in a giant "star field." Too nerdy? The Crazy Armadillo Cantina nearby boasts bottle-juggling bartenders and "Shooter Girls" shimmying on tabletops...
Damon's Grill is a perfect example. The clubhouse has been designed to be inviting to as big a mix of eaters as possible. At least one of the joint's four big-screen TVs is usually tuned to a sporting event. But often CNN and cartoons are showing on other screens too, Foust says. Thanks to individual tabletop speakers, diners get to pick what they watch...And if that's not enough stimulation, the room is wired to let folks challenge other tables in interactive trivia.
The only trouble with all this entertainment, from a dietary point of view, is just that while we are focusing on the entertainment it becomes easy to forget how much we're eating during our "getaway" from real life -- or to forget to care. (What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas -- but not the extra pounds around the waist!)
Kessler also highlights a place called Pink's:
HOT DOG TO THE STARS!
It's our 70th year in Los Angeles, at the same location.
A family-owned hot dog stand since 1939
As much as or more than food, "this is all about entertaining people," one of the proprietors told Kessler. "That's what the food industry has become."
And surely Pink's entertains, with its quirky recipes and star-power-by-association -- see the cute website. You can get such items as:
PASTRAMI BURRITO - Big flour tortilla
wrapped around 2 hot dogs, Grilled Pastrami,
Swiss cheese, chili & onions $5.95
Martha Stewart Dog
10" Stretch Dog, relish, onions, bacon
chopped tomatoes, sauerkraut & sour cream $5.45
Their "most popular" is a "stretch chili cheese dog," according to the website -- stretch meaning a 10" dog protruding a good ways from the roll at both ends, and probably an unwise indulgence for most of us. Still, I have to admit that if I were in Hollywood, how bad could it be to indulge in their basic chili dog at the vast price of $3.10 -- all that entertainment and star-power-by-association accruing as much to the simple indulgence as to the Martha Stewart! (Oh, yes...I would be better off with a tuna salad somewhere else, that is true! So the siren song of eatertainment does sound in my ears!)
Meanwhile, events tumble onwards and things may be changing in the current recession. Certainly it is hurting restaurants, however it may have changed the indulgence quotient.
Nation's Restaurant News, February 2, 2009
For the current year, the numbers don't look good. Technomic Inc. revised downward its 2009 foodservice sales projections last month because of further contraction in the U.S. economy, and the casual-dining segment drove the deeper decline...Sales at full-service restaurants will be hit hardest, Technomic said, with an expected drop of 6 percent on a nominal basis and 8.5 percent on a real basis.
Indulgence and eatertainment may again become more occasional for many American consumers simply due to economic reality. Has the economy affected you in that way? Let us know -- follow past the housekeeping to today's poll.
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October 21
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock
October 22
Thurs AM - A DC Wonk
Thurs PM - ???
October 23
Fri AM - freedapeople
Fri PM - Be Your Own Geneticist: Chapter 2:
Experimentation and Wrong Diagnosis with louisev
October 24
Sat AM - cdkipp - Green Tea and Your Metabolism
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch. 17)
October 25
Sun AM - Turtle Diary
Sun PM - kismet
October 26
Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - ???
October 27
Tues AM - ??
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 18)
BTW, progress report. As learned here at WHEE, we are all different in our physiology. In my case, on reading Kessler I felt an imediate certainty that there was a truth here for me. Since Aug. 26, on a cobbled-together personal Kessler-Wansink eating plan, I've dropped in weight by 12 pounds. I had a birthday last week and thanks to friends, three days with different festivities including champagne, two birthday cakes, and a couple of restaurant meals and -- to my amazement -- no weight gain. I'm still about 12 pounds "overweight" based on BMI...so we'll see how things progress, or not, heading into the holiday season.