"Everything that has made us successful as a company is the problem."
That's what a food industry executive in London told Dr. David Kessler when Kessler gave his company a rundown on some key points we've covered in The End of Overeating.
Welcome back to the group read of this book, now winding toawrd a close. For those who might want to catch up, series initiator Edward Spurlock again kindly provided links back to previous installments in his most recent Kessler diary covering Ch. 45.
Ch. 46 is the first in the book's brief final "Part 6: The End of Overeating." Below the fold, more on the marketers' dilemma.
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The executive's unidentified "global food company" flew Kessler to London in order to have him present a 10-minute Power Point, as Kessler describes. (Ah, nice to have that kind of money. But that's global business for you.)
Why? Because the British press was giving them a whacking and in response, some question of nutritional regulation had been raised. Kessler gave them a quick introduction to the concepts we've covered in the previous 239 pages. (Nice to be so smart you can get it in 10 minutes. But still, that's why they get paid the megabucks, isn't it?)
You recall the main points:
--The pervasive increase in obsesity
--The shortcomings of the set-point theory to account for it
--The ability of fat, salt and sugar to act like addictive substances for some people, especially in combination.
--Common foods have become sensorily enriched, salient stimuli
--The packaging and the evironment cue us to eat continually
--The formation of habit
"You end up with a highly reinforcing product that provokes conditioned and driven behavior."
That's what Kessler told the group.
And here's where (diarist's commentary), in spite of the wish to sneer, it seems impossible to avoid some sympathy for the devil.
Survival in the marketplace demands outcompeting the competition, and that means selling more and/or at a greater profit. How could a global food company that wants to survive as such not use every one of the tools we have read about: layering, loading, and amping up the sensory wow; substituting cheap engineered additives for fresh, whole ingredients; and inundating the public environment with cues to consume and easy opportunities for more consumption. Especially when everyone else is doing the same thing, and the public in response has already developed enlarged and coarsened preferences. What is a poor devil to do?
Yet oddly enough, according to Kessler, they got it.
...they began to rethink their strategies about labeling and portion size.
And maybe those executives really are smart enough to deserve those big bucks (or pounds), because where I would have seen an impasse, they apparently saw something that looked like an opportunity. Apparently they took to heart the concept that there are other kinds of liabilities and responsibilities, in addition to the monetary and legal kind. Moreover, if consumers one day come to see your product as harmful and something to be avoided, sales will then go pffft. With that kind of conflict brewing, maybe it is smarter for a company to be out in front.
Update to the chapter: the British Guardian, had this on Jan. 15:
US-style calorie counts for food sold in takeaways, restaurants and canteens will be tried within six months in the latest move to tackle Britain's obesity crisis, the government's Food Standards Agency announced today.
But no...not regulation.
It is seeking volunteer companies to pioneer listings of energy content on wallcharts and menus and believes the rest of the industry will follow suit once a standardised simple guide is agreed under the scheme, which will not be backed by legislation....
Some restaurant chains are doing this already, and the government wants it to go farther.
Pizza Hut became the first company to say it was interested in becoming one of the pilot companies.
How about that?
In the U.S., we are starting to see actual regulation, the paper notes:
In New York firms with more than 15 branches across the US must carry the calorie count in the same size print as the name of the food.
Seems like a step in the right direction, whether voluntary or otherwise. And if voluntary, good for them.
Happy Ground Hog Day, Candlemas or Imbolc according to your preference!
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