Corporations excel at the art of saying a lot without meaning anything. All their talk will not stop them from taking our money. Nor should it. Apps to see how you use your phone such as Screen Time have existed for a while and most of us simply ignore it. What next ? Will Apple packaging feature a photo of a dinner table with family members staring at their phone, ignoring a meal as a wailing mother protests?
We keep arguing that food packaging needs to be clearer about portion sizes, macronutrient content. But putting a diseased lung did not stop anyone from smoking. Are we going to plaster a photo of an obese person’s funeral on a packet of Bournvita?
We fetishise marketing, communication and packaging at the expense of better ingredients. That pack of Bournvita cost Cadburys next to nothing to produce. 90% of the price probably went to packaging, administrative and marketing costs. Corporations can pick up milk protein for between 30 paisa and 50 paisa per gram. Essential fatty acids cost more. Bournvita sells for 40 paisa per gram. They cannot sell you anything better. And they don’t want to either.
Expecting a corporation to serve up something healthy is naive if not stupid. They serve one master: shareholder capital. Customer well-being will be sacrificed at the altar of short term profits even if it means they will have no customers in fifty years. Nestle has been accused of actively promoting infant formulae over breast feeding in sub Saharan Africa. Nestle’s infant formula is not cheap. This behaviour is the norm, corporates are manipulative trolls who will say anything to sell us overpriced crap. They have done next to nothing to earn trust. The only way to show them we mean business is to not let them hear the sweet ding from our UPI app.
We keep arguing that food packaging needs to be clearer about portion sizes, macronutrient content. But putting a diseased lung did not stop anyone from smoking. Are we going to plaster a photo of an obese person’s funeral on a packet of Bournvita?
We fetishise marketing, communication and packaging at the expense of better ingredients. That pack of Bournvita cost Cadburys next to nothing to produce. 90% of the price probably went to packaging, administrative and marketing costs. Corporations can pick up milk protein for between 30 paisa and 50 paisa per gram. Essential fatty acids cost more. Bournvita sells for 40 paisa per gram. They cannot sell you anything better. And they don’t want to either.
Expecting a corporation to serve up something healthy is naive if not stupid. They serve one master: shareholder capital. Customer well-being will be sacrificed at the altar of short term profits even if it means they will have no customers in fifty years. Nestle has been accused of actively promoting infant formulae over breast feeding in sub Saharan Africa. Nestle’s infant formula is not cheap. This behaviour is the norm, corporates are manipulative trolls who will say anything to sell us overpriced crap. They have done next to nothing to earn trust. The only way to show them we mean business is to not let them hear the sweet ding from our UPI app.