PACK SIZE, BUYING POWER AND OVER EATING SYNDROME-ANY RELATION?

The quality of food one eats and the way it is eaten are both important, if optimum health is to be maintained. There are many unsolicited advices that are offered to those who are perennially looking for good foods that can provide right nutrition to the body. The basic nutrient make up of a food as declared in the front of the pack label reveals a lot but there are many other aspects such labels cannot tell the consumer. That is why health pundits always hold the view that more diverse the diet is, using a variety of foods, better it will be for keeping one healthy. Similarly the way one eats also has a bearing on the health of the individual. Faster one eats the food, more vulnerable will be the person to some of the eating disorders found prevalent in to day's society. It is for nothing that Buddhists are being projected as ideal eaters because they really enjoy eating the food slowly and with lot of respect for the food. To day's consumer is a much harried human being pulled from all directions with tons of information, often contradictory and confusing, regarding the best way to eat and live. The million dollar question that begs for an answer is whether to day's market environment will allow even a saint to desist from over indulging in food leading to predictable health consequences.

According to those who promote the concept of "Food Justice", consumers per se do not know what is really good for him but are "pressurized" by the market environment to invariably choose bad foods ( say junk foods?).  The economic compulsions further push him into the arms of the "wily" food industry who have the "expertise" to seduce the consumer through mouth watering products with low nutrient density at low cost while protective foods are priced exorbitantly high putting them beyond the reach of consumers who really need them. Those propounding "Food Justice" further feel that the State must play a crucial role in creating right environment for eating right foods. Recent policy orchestration by New York authorities to ban serving of sugary beverages beyond the size of 16 ounces is being criticized by the industry as well as some human rights activists as bordering on violation of the consumer's right to eat "what he wants, when he wants and where he wants'. What is forgotten in this semantic and sterile argument is that past history is replete with instances when the State had to intervene as in the cases of alcoholic beverages and tobacco smoking! If the State does such things for the common good of the citizen and majority consent to them it is no body's business to question the intention behind the move. 

Interestingly the New York move raises a far more serious question regarding the industrial practices which are often criticized for their negative impact on the well being of the citizenry.  Look at the advertisement blitzkrieg unleashed by the beverage industry against the government for such a small initiative and one can imagine the ferocity of such attacks if there were to be a total ban of sales of sugary drinks in the state! Is it that the industry does not have even an iota of consideration towards the consumer and is so brutal that it will go to any extent to sabotage such healthy measures? Is it not true that such mildly coercive policies are considered only when industry indulges in semantics when asked to voluntarily take action to modify their products in tune with standard nutritional and health standards? Now it is the sugar products that is making news but there are other issues like salt content in processed foods, trans fats and saturated fats which are potential mine fields for conflict between the industry and the consumer driven government policies.

An important question that is being debated is whether restricting serving size has any thing to do with obesity related problems. According to psychologists, the human behavior vis-a-vis eating food can be conditioned by the environment where food service takes place. It is the historical human weakness that when a large portion of food placed before him the tendency is to finish it off without leaving any thing back and this weakness is being exploited by the industry to push the consumer to binging. Added to this, the product pricing strategy which makes large portion sizes comparatively cheaper per unit acts as a motivation to buy larger sizes without the consumer realizing the consequences of over eating on his health. In American market larger the pack size or greater the number of units purchased, lesser will be the effective price to the consumer! Probably New York authorities have this odd behavior of the consumer in mind when the ban order was being considered. The argument that consumer freedom of choice is being curtailed cannot gel because no body prevents the consumer from buying multiple units if he really wants, though the policy makers rely on the consumer's inertia in picking up the second unit for bringing about net reduction in consumption of such dangerous beverages.

Recent trend that is perceptible in the market indicates that industry is really reducing the pack sizes not out of love of the consumers but for its economic benefits since lower quantity delivered without cutting down prices is a strategy adopted for countering inflation and protecting the bottom line. This trend was visible long ago in countries like India where substantial segment of the population has limited buying power and therefore cannot aspire to buy large packs costing exorbitantly. Thus the pack size and the buying capacity have a correlation which comes into play when food marketing strategies are worked out. The current trend in the US where pack sizes are reduced because of the economic down turn is simply a response by the industry to protect their financial health. Also coming into play is the convenience factor which is persuading the industry to go small and single use packs and if this trend grows as being anticipated, can also contribute its might in reducing food consumption in the market place. Taking into consideration these complex situations, state intervention will become more and frequent in future to protect the lives of its citizens food mercenaries.. 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

"SHRINKING" FOOD PACKS AND RISING PRICES-THE NEW INDUSTRY STRATEGY

How to beat the need to raise the prices of food products without antagonizing the consumer? This is a crucial issue that is confronting the industry world over and if the the product is not price sensitive the manufacturers may not be averse to increase the retail price to keep up with the rising inflation. But what about those products which are more or less staple foods for most of the consumers who will definitely feel the pinch when the family expenditure shoots up significantly? In western countries and many affluent communities the share of processed foods in the daily diet can be as high as 80%, any upward movement of prices is easily discerned.

In the retail market there are broadly two types of packed foods which consist of branded ones and the generic ones usually marketed by the retailing store under its own label. Invariably there is significant price difference with the branded products costing much more compared to generic or local store brands. One of the choices for the consumers is to switch over to local products in preference to established brands and stay within the family food budget. This is where the big processors find it difficult to compete and maintain the business volume. Naturally the main stream industry has to evolve effective strategies to survive and grow in such an environment. Playing around with the human weakness vis-a-vis appearance is exploited to "deceive" the consumer, giving the impression that products prices are not increased in spite of inflation.

It is true that commodity and energy costs have been climbing continuously with no respite and the organized food industry cannot escape from increasing the prices of their products to keep in step with the rising input costs. Whether one calls it ingenuity or plain deception, industry has hit upon the idea of downsizing their pack size without the consumer knowing about it unless the product labels are closely scrutinized. Probably the credit for this strategy must go to the wily package designers who are able to evolve suitable packs containing lesser quantity of products inside which cannot be discerned so easily. The result is a hidden price increase that has gone largely undetected by the average shopper. Recent studies in some of the markets in the Western world have brought out the fact that most popular products were able to to shrink their effective delivery by as much as 20 percent. In a few cases, even after reducing the quantity in the package the products actually appeared larger after downsizing!

One of the reasons why the consumer is not able to find out this deception must be due to the non-standard sizes of packs with each manufacturer using odd sizes which are difficult to remember. There was a time when standard weights and measures were specified and made mandatory by the authorities which helped the consumer to more or less pick up products based on comparative price analysis. But industry has been handed over a convenient route to deceive the consumer by using any pack size provided a declaration is made on the pack that it is not a standard size! With computer aided design capabilities, manufacturers can make a pack look bigger while actually reducing the content size and what is being witnessed to day is the result of such "intelligent" manipulation by the industry to protect their bottom line.

Probably it may be a pretty smart way of "having your cake as well as eat it"! It is a pity that most consumers buying any product do not have the faintest idea as to how much product is contained in a pack and a few pieces missing when the pack is opened at home are unlikely to be noticed. At least this is what the industry thinks. In contrast even a marginal increase in price is immediately noticed which can invite adverse reaction. This is the cardinal basis as to why food manufacturers feel that they can retain customers if they reduce volume instead of passing along price increases. Since this trend has more or less succeeded in almost all parts of the world, it is not unreasonable to expect the same to continue in light of a recent surge in prices of basic food commodities like wheat, corn, coffee etc.

International market prices for foods rose for eight straight months before peaking at a record high in February as per the monthly index figures put out by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, which tracks data for sugar, cereals, dairy, oils and meat products. This has been attributed to rising oil prices and extreme weather conditions in countries like Russia, which banned grain exports after experiencing its worst drought in a century. Naturally this puts food manufacturers in a fix as they know that most consumers are hyper-sensitive when it comes to price hikes at the supermarket. While in a country like the US consumers may be spending about 10% of their income on food purchase, this figure can be as high as 50% in countries like India. Further erosion of the purchasing capacity through all round, uncontrolled price escalation, at a rate faster than their income levels, is unlikely to be tolerated by the citizens. The new down sizing strategy by the industry, though understandable and considered perfectly legal, cannot be condoned from the ethical angle. Indirectly reducing serving size through shrinking pack size may be a blessing in disguise in countries faced with obesity problem as food intake gets automatically reduced.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

THE "BLOATED" FOOD PACKS-TECHNICAL NECESSITY OR DECEPTION?

Packaging designers seem to be working over time in their "design" to impress the consumer through what ever means possible. The latest ploy is to use over sized bags for packing which in conjunction with nitrogen filling gives a bloated appearance and consumers are attracted to buy these jumbo packs without sparing any time to read the information on the labels. Legally no one can argue that such practices are not right but ethically it cannot be condoned easily. It is unfortunate that the Weights and Measures Act has done away with the provision in force that restricts the pack size to a particular range, making it easy for the consumer to recognize them. To day the industry can market any pack size and it is common to see an enormous range of pack sizes with no uniformity or standard weights that can be remembered by the consumer.

One can argue that the existing labeling regulations compel the industry to declare the contents either in weights or volume or in numbers in some cases. Unfortunately there is no compulsion to declare the price on a uniform unit weight basis thus giving considerable scope for playing around with the figures. Thus one can get the same product manufactured by different manufacturers apparently for the same price but containing different quantities. It is not fair to leave such a situation where alert consumers are left to fend for themselves to calculate the prices on per unit weight basis and such calculations become complex to do mentally as most the declared weights are not easily multipliable or divisible. Probably a time may come when house wives going to the market will have to carry a calculator to make the purchase decision!

This is not a phenomenon confined to India only. In some of the developed countries it is jokingly being said that,"even after being processed, breaded and frozen, fish continue to enjoy the feeling of the open ocean" because of the big size of the package containing ample air space! In a recent survey in a western country it was found that there were many products that filled as little as half their packages, a practice that, even given accurately listed weights, it may look deceptive for any discerning consumer.

There was a time not long ago when industry was striving hard to reduce the packaging cost by optimizing the design and using less of the packaging as far as possible without compromising on the functionality or the integrity of the package. Computer aided designs were once popular for evolving optimum shape of bottles and boxes that can be made using least quantity of raw materials. The unbearable taxation burden, prevailing then, which increased the proportion of cost of packaging in the final product price, necessitated such practices. The progressive reduction in taxes and duties on raw as well as finished products of the packaging industry has reduced the packaging cost from a high of 35-50% of the product cost to less than 10% to day which probably might have provided the incentive for the "bloated packs" phenomenon being seen widely in the food processing industry in the country. It is time the industry is made to declare also the prices per unit weight along with the pack price for the benefit of the consumers.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com