Can't stop thinking about food today...
The food industry has been a CSR hotspot over the past year, as obesity in developed countries triggered such critiques as Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me. These brought food issues into the mainstream press, and now there are regular news pieces criticising the food industry - and also covering the industry's responses and rebuttals.
The June 5th Financial Times has an interview with Roger Deromedi, CEO of Kraft ("Watching the World's Waistlines"). In the article, Deromedi brags about the many changes Kraft has made to its products, and the fact that his own meal adjustments (which still contain a large proportion of Kraft products) have allowed him to lose 15-20 pounds. With Kraft being best known for unhealty products like macaroni-and-cheese, Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid, the change in strategy/messaging is huge.
Yesterday I was also reading an early manuscript of a colleague's book, and he mentions Hershey Foods as an outlier in the sense that it doesn't even publish a social report. This sort of CSR activity was, until quite recently, considered above and beyond the call of duty - but now perhaps is expected.
Other articles have criticized the food industry for making only small incremental changes to their products, too small to make much difference.
In the US and the UK, schools are starting to ban "junk food" from the cafeterias. Actually, my own high school had a similar rule. The problem was that the lunch food wasn't really any healthier than the "junk food"- we had greasy tater-tots, "grade N" canned beef, chocolate pudding, etc. I would sometimes eat only bread rolls for lunch, as they seemed the healthiest edible option (the vegetables being too old or overcooked to seem edible).
Any real fix to the school-lunch problems would have to involve adding foods that are healthy, not just taking away the worst of the current foods. Super Size Me showcased one provider of school lunches that uses local/organic produce and allegedly cost no more than other providers. It seems hard to believe, but if it's true it would be a great breakthrough.
Someone I met at a conference recently is spearheading a campaign to change the food sourcing at Princeton University; she had information on other colleges who are experimenting with healthier dining-hall options, with great success. But everyone in this business has an agenda - the companies who say everything's fine and the activists who say their way is better.
But even if the solutions aren't easy, I'm glad to see that this dialogue has started.
The June 5th Financial Times has an interview with Roger Deromedi, CEO of Kraft ("Watching the World's Waistlines"). In the article, Deromedi brags about the many changes Kraft has made to its products, and the fact that his own meal adjustments (which still contain a large proportion of Kraft products) have allowed him to lose 15-20 pounds. With Kraft being best known for unhealty products like macaroni-and-cheese, Oreo cookies and Kool-Aid, the change in strategy/messaging is huge.
Yesterday I was also reading an early manuscript of a colleague's book, and he mentions Hershey Foods as an outlier in the sense that it doesn't even publish a social report. This sort of CSR activity was, until quite recently, considered above and beyond the call of duty - but now perhaps is expected.
Other articles have criticized the food industry for making only small incremental changes to their products, too small to make much difference.
In the US and the UK, schools are starting to ban "junk food" from the cafeterias. Actually, my own high school had a similar rule. The problem was that the lunch food wasn't really any healthier than the "junk food"- we had greasy tater-tots, "grade N" canned beef, chocolate pudding, etc. I would sometimes eat only bread rolls for lunch, as they seemed the healthiest edible option (the vegetables being too old or overcooked to seem edible).
Any real fix to the school-lunch problems would have to involve adding foods that are healthy, not just taking away the worst of the current foods. Super Size Me showcased one provider of school lunches that uses local/organic produce and allegedly cost no more than other providers. It seems hard to believe, but if it's true it would be a great breakthrough.
Someone I met at a conference recently is spearheading a campaign to change the food sourcing at Princeton University; she had information on other colleges who are experimenting with healthier dining-hall options, with great success. But everyone in this business has an agenda - the companies who say everything's fine and the activists who say their way is better.
But even if the solutions aren't easy, I'm glad to see that this dialogue has started.
posted by Melissa Paschall at 6/08/2006 09:44:00 AM
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