Inside D.C.

Give the customer what you think they want

First, the terminally cynical Chipotle says “no GMOs on our menu” – not exactly accurate, but that’s how the media reported it – then this week, Panera Bread announces it’s taking artificial colors, flavorings, etc., out of its products.  Science says both of these moves are unwarranted from a health or safety standpoint, but these chains do it anyway.

Such purely profit-driven marketing ploys – and those of livestock and poultry companies which trumpet “no growth hormones in our chicken” or “fed an all vegetarian diet” – also have no scientific, and in several cases, factual basis.  Yet, more and more integrators, processors and food companies play to what they know to be consumer confusion or distrust of technologies, and rather than informing their customers, helping them embrace what the miracle of modern science has brought forth, these retailers and others pander to unfounded questions and outright fears.

What’s more aggravating is these marketing moves are inevitably swaddled in such warm, fuzzy, earth-friendly propaganda, it strains credulity that these companies think consumers believe they’ve all had some sort of epiphany and will now purvey only the “good stuff” regardless of whether it’s good or not.

If they’re being honest, why not talk of ditching the all machinery in their kitchens and returning to hand-milled flour, and forget buying poultry parts or cuts of meat, swear you’ll kill the bird/beast on site, defeather/skin it, debone and butcher it for those tasty – albeit increasingly expensive – tacos, burritos, panini sandwiches, etc.  Oh, and let’s bring back the daily ice delivery because that modern freezer technology just ain’t natural.

Not only do these companies do a gross disservice to their customers by choosing this path, they actually give aid and comfort to those who attack modern food production for the technologies it uses.  Every time one of these feel-good food restaurant chains tries to differentiate its products for a bigger share of the Millennial market, some half-baked activist group stands up and waves a sign saying, “We told you so – even Panera and Chipotle think so.”  My cynical self knows the marketing and ad execs are fully aware this happens, but then they kill two birds with one stone: They keep angry activists off their corporate back – “Hey, we’re trying” – and it allows third parties to flak their products even though those same folks likely don’t spend their money at either chain.

Recently, a team of Belgian philosophers and plant scientists – now, there’s a dinner party guest list – studied the cognitive science to find out why anti-GMO sentiment runs so deeply among Europeans despite black and white facts about the safety and environmental benefits of biotechnology.

The scientists acknowledge there are legitimate parochial concerns about GMOs, e.g. herbicide resistance in weeds, but these concerns are generally unrelated to the technology per se, attributable to bad practices and policy that happen with conventional crop production as well.

“We argue that intuitive expectations about the world render the human mind vulnerable to particular representations of GMOs,” the team wrote.  The group reports such intuitive minds are not well equipped to deal with questions like, ‘how does it work’ or ‘is it dangerous’ – and most folks won’t spend the time or energy to find out how a particular technology works.  What it boils down to then is a “group think” of “This is how I think things are/should be.  I really don’t have any evidence to the contrary and I’m not investing any time to find out, and so I’m going to assume I’m right.”

And through the Panera-Chipotle marketing, these food companies validate this ignorance. Maybe it’s because a gullible, uninformed customer is a more easily led customer.

One day, when 1% or less of the population can afford to even contemplate a Chipotle burrito or a Panera sandwich because of the cost or lack of taste, I predict these two chains will be among the first to launch an ad campaign proclaiming a “return to the good old days” of technology, taste and affordability.  It is, obviously, all about profits.

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