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Obesity and people’s health is becoming the new marketing frontier for food companies.
Products that bring weight management, that make you feel better, have more energy and help the digestive tract are going to be big movers on the supermarket shelves.

Numerous companies adding nutrients, bacteria and minerals to our highly processed foods in order to win the sale, with Omega 3 and anti oxidants topping the list.

Recently Kelleggs made some crazy nutritonal claims that “Now Helps Support Your Child’s IMMUNITY” right on the front of the cereal box with the added claims of 25% of the daily value of antioxidant vitamins A, C and E.

Together with Kellogg’s, Groupe Danone and Nestle are getting into the nutritional bandwagon with creating additives that make there products more nutritionally appealing.

Danone have Dannon Activia and DanActive Yoghurt are leading the charge with there Probiotics, the healthy bacteria that are found in your gastrointestinal tract. Once again there is limited research to support the benefits of probiotics and more importantly the different strains of probiotics.

It’s a shame that as a society, we are increasing becoming more reliant on the avalanche of processed foods that large food vendors are happy to produce to satisfy demand.

Ultimately clever marketing and development of new products will persuade unsuspecting consumers to make choices as to what they consume, be it food closer to it’s natural state or the processed variety from food companies.

After a finding by the Food Safety Agency in Germany have found that Red Bull contains 0.4 micrograms of cocaine per litre, Red Bull has been banned from 6 German states.

It is reminiscent of how Coca Cola was also found to contain cocaine at the turn of the 20th Century.
While it is considered to be within safety tolerances, the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and Federal Institute for Risk Assessment sought to extend the ban on Red Bull.

Red Bull made a public statement that the levels of cocaine were attributed to the “use of a decocainised coca leaf extract in the product.”
Well the stimulant must come from somewhere apart from the caffeine.

“Decocainised coca leaf extracts are used as flavouring in foodstuffs around the world and are considered to be safe (eg FDA Gras Status, Council of Europe). Red Bull Cola and other foodstuff containing such extracts may therefore be sold legally.”

At this stage Coca Cola has not made any statements whether they use a decocainised coca leaf extract in their products.

Even though the cocaine may be in miniscule quantities, it may be interesting to see whether this level of cocaine is what give Red Bull it’s wings:))

Chemical free garlic verses imported garlic, well after going to the local farmers market last Saturday, I decided to do a test to determine whether the local chemical free garlic is better.

Well this image was taken today, exactly 1 week after purchasing the chemical free garlic and an imported variety from my local supermarket.

A big test of freshness and the state of the fruit and vegetables is how quickly it rots and deteriorates. Try this out with your onions as well as it starts to sprout some stalks if it is still living and hasn’t been killed by chemicals and pesticides.

Most imported Garlic contains Methyl Bromide, a very nasty chemical.

So while the chemical free garlic may not more expensive than the imported garlic, what price can you place on your health.

Are Junk food companies developing brand loyalty towards children? With childhood obesity being a complex issue, is regulation required?
With the recent approval of McDonalds at the Royal Children Hospital, is creating brand awareness from an early age a good thing.

I like to compare it to tobacco adverting in motor sport, if it had no effect on peoples decision top either change their cigarette brands or influence their decision to commence smoking why would they spend hundreds of millions of dollars placing there logo’s on the cars?

Well guess what, they ban any form of advertising in Australia yet junk food is ok to be promoted unregulated.

Today everyone from breakfast cereal companies such as Nutri-Grain which is a third sugar to McDonalds sponsoring Little athletics.
Coco Krispies made similar nutritional claims in the US.
The next strategy are branded toys and even McDonalds now has a toy whereby the children can make hamburgers in a Barbie doll style plastic kitchen.

Now we are seeing websites created by the big multi nationals with web based games show casing planety of company logo’s and product images.

So why do junk food companies do it?
*Brand awareness
*Creates associations with a particular event or activity
*Creates a relationships with the parents
*Influencing children at an age where they lack the ability to make healthy food and beverage decisions.

Ultimately you can argue that the parents have the final say or control the money to purchase these products but the same can be said for cigarette advertising.
Ultimately it makes it harder for responsible parents to take control of there children’s health.

The latest Government Preventative Health Taskforce document targeting obesity and Diabetes make recommendations to phase out junk food advertising before pm and banning junk food toy competition promotions.
The only issue is the voluntary nature of this report, once again leaving it to the socially responsible corporations to follow the guidelines.
Unfortunately self regulation hasn’t worked as was experienced by Coke last year.

So will the junk food companies adopt a more responsible approach when developing their brand loyalty towards children

A leaked document purports that beverage companies are using scare tactics to reduce the consumption of tap water and increase the sales of bottled water.

Apparently some people from a PR company working with the Natural Hydration Council contacted a Scottish newspaper with information E Coli contamination in the water supply.
The Natural Hydration Council (NHC) whose founding members are , yes you guess it companies who would benefit from increased bottled water consumption, Danone Waters (UK & Ireland) Ltd, Nestlé Waters UK Ltd and Highland Spring Ltd.
They also have a sister website about You ought to drink more water, well that’s great but what is the home page cover shot promoting, general water consumption?

There premise is to effectively finds ways to help promote the consumption of bottled water siting environmental, health and other sustainable benefits so consumers can make informed decisions.
It would be intersting to see how extensive and objective there research is regarding the benefits of drinking tap.

I find this very strange stating an environmental benefit when the oil consumption for producing bottled water (excluding the transportation) is 17 million barrels or 3.5 days of the US’s daily oil consumption (4,950 ,000 barrels/day)

Selling bottled water is one the 20th centuries great strokes of marketing genuis, apart from created a multi billion dollar market that was non existent 25 years ago, we are encouraged to drink water constantly like we are walking in the Sahara desert without shade. “Quick Bob, don’t forget to take some water with you if you’re walking around for 30 minutes, you may get dehydrated” Although this sounds silly drinking water on the go is thoroughly encouraged.

Check out a great slide presentation of Why we shouldn’t drink bottled water.

So next time you reach for the wallet, have a think about what these beverage companies are doing to reduce the consumption of tap water.