Food Industry Marketing

By: Shannon Crilley

      In today's day in age it seems that everyone is trying to eat healthier. The more people learn about how bad fast food and other fat filled foods are for you, a new trend seems to be arising. More people are trying to eat organic and low calorie meals and the food companies are on to this new trend. In order to increase sales in healthy food options and keep their customers happy, companies need to market their products as "healthy", "low calorie, and "high in protein" wether those claims be true or not. Nate Morrow from The Huffington Post claims that companies are not trying to make you healthy, but simply trying to sell a product. He writes 4 tricks that marketing teams can pull on customers in order to make the sale. Dishonest or genius? You decide.

1) Nutrition labels are not always 100% accurate- In 2011, the U.S. Government warned the public with a "serious oversight dilemma" regarding the FDA's ability to monitor false nutrition labels. The FDA allows nutrition facts to be off up to 20%. Marketing teams see this and use it to their advantage in order to make the healthy sale.
2) Food companies can mislead you by manipulating serving sizes- Companies rely on the fact that not all shoppers diligently read the nutrition labels and may mistake a "400 Calorie" item to really only be for half of one serving.
3) Zero grams of trans fat might not really be zero- In the U.S. according to the FDA, any amount of fat or sugar under 0.5 grams can be labeled as 0 grams of fats or sugars. People want to eat food with very little fats and sugars so marketing teams can use this to their advantage and promote 0 grams of fat, weather that be completely true or not.
4) "Fat Free" and "Sugar Free" products still may not be healthy at all- Companies often replace the fats and sugars in their products with artificial chemicals in order to still make their food or drink taste good and still remain "healthy". The soft drink industry is a big user of this method.

      Now after reading all those tricks it's easy to see that not all foods are as healthy as they claim to be. However, in the business world the producer has to know what the consumer wants. In this case, if the consumer wants healthier food, the producer is going to find a way to sell them healthier food. Marketing teams have to be ahead of the current trends and realize what people want and figure out how to give them that without necessarily completely changing the products they are selling. Some might think this is slightly dishonest or shady but the job of a marketer is to connect with the consumers and sell products. Despite the previous facts regarding FDA health regulations, the world is becoming healthier. Marketers in the food industry have to be ready for lots of new vegan and vegetarian trends and have to figure out a way to keep those costumers happy and healthy.



Morrow, Nate. "4 Shocking Facts About Food Industry Marketing You Should Know." The   Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.p. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.