Welcome to the Lempert Report LIVE.
Welcome to the Lempert Report LIVE.
Welcome to the Lempert Report Live. Today a new utensil that can fool your taste buds, another reason to avoid fast food, kids and adult food allergies continue their rise, Bon Appetit shares their trends and bad news for those working at food companies. Be sure to check out Food News Today on SupermarketGuru.com for the most up to the minute newsfeed courtesy of our partnership with Cision. And don’t forget to add your own insights and comments during the broadcast and we will share those after The Bullseye. Let’s get started. So, Sally, it looks like technology is a way that we can avoid sugar, salt, maybe even fat. But it's all through utensils. It's not any medication, it's not any dieting. It's just like fooling our taste buds. Is this good?
Sally:Well, considering the fact, Phil, that we have about 14% of our population here in the US that has diabetes, this could be really good news for them because they do have to limit their diets and can't have, you know, sugar in the way that regular people. But what's really cool is that these graduate students have developed this spoon that is called Sugarware, and it has sensors on it, little bumps on the bottom of the spoon. And when you use the spoon, it's supposed to add sweetness to the flavor of your food without actually adding sugar.
Phil:But I guess my question is whether or not, you know, by fooling our taste buds this way, whether or not we're actually changing behavior. To me, it's almost like a bandaid that sure, when I use this spoon, you know, I don't have to have sugar, but I'm not losing my craving for sugar. And if in fact, I'm diabetic or, you know, some of them are for salt, sensations and so on, if in fact I'm not supposed to have those kinds of ingredients for health reasons using these utensils, could that just build on my desire to have that? And then when I forget my spoon, I'm just gonna load on the sugar.
Sally:That's a very good point. And you know, as we discussed last week, you know, about dry January and about diets, we have talked over and over about how research shows that these like, you know, big restrictions that we put on ourselves can sometimes make us go in the complete opposite direction. Instead of learning how to moderate our intake we've said it over and over.
Phil:Now, part of this research, also finds that the weight, the color and the shape of normal utensils can change how we perceive the food's taste. So basically what you should do, what they recommend is try different spoons, try different things without these sensors. And you may find that, you know, using a certain spoon makes you think that something is sweeter. Talking about eating, let's talk about fast food. And it turns out that there's this new study from the Keck Medicine of USC, that was published in the clinical gerontology and Hepatology magazine gives people extra motivation to reduce fast food consumption. They found that eating fast food is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease which is a life-threatening condition. And those people with obesity or diabetes who consume 20% or more of their daily calories from fast food have severely elevated levels of fat in their liver. And also, we're not just talking about extreme, we're not talking about eating five meals a day, you know, at a McDonald's or a Burger King. We're talking about even if you have a modest amount of fast food, it can hurt our liver.
Sally:That's correct, Phil. And you know, the other interesting thing about this study is that in this study from USC, they looked at the restaurants that don't have a wait staff. It did include pizza, but fast food restaurants that don't have a wait staff. Now, when I think about that, I also think about fast casuals, where you go in and you sit down and you do have a wait staff and the food is comparable as far as nutritional content and fat content and salt and sugar to a fast food restaurant. So this study is not even including when we're dining out at those places.
Phil:Yeah. And, and it just, it's all about moderation. Whether it's, you know, spoons, whether it's fast food, whether it's sugars, all about moderation. And probably even more important when we talk about moderation, the rise of food allergies is going through the roof. Research is suggesting that about 10.8% of adults and 7.6% of kids in the US have food allergies. And 19% of adults are indicated to be allergic to at least one food. So, you know, what's going on where we have more food allergies than ever before? Is this because of new ingredients that are being used? Is it because, maybe during the pandemic, because this took place between October 2015, so, no, this was pre-pandemic October 2015 to September 2016. So we can't blame the pandemic on this one.
Sally:Well, there are multiple theories out there about food allergies that we read all of the time, some environmental, some about what is going into our food, but it does make us wonder what is happening here, where so many people have food allergies and not just one food allergy. But you know, in this study that we looked at, they looked at people who had one food allergy, and half of them have multiple food allergies. And we know that this takes a toll on people in their lifestyle, mentally, in their social interactions. And it's also just very dangerous for them, you know for their lives.
Phil:And it's tough when you go out to a restaurant, not just on the restaurant staff, but you know, you don't know all the ingredients that are being put in something. And yes, you can ask, your wait s taff, you know, is there soy in this or is there sesame in this? And so on. And they may say no or yes, or they may say, I'll check with the kitchen. Who knows if they're even checking with the kitchen. So it's really important that, that we're careful on that. We found this great story in Bon Appetit, put together by Serena Dai the internet food culture in review from the most delicious to the most distressing. I love this chart that, that they put together. And I know it's very hard to read, but on the top it says delicious at the bottom, distressing one side staying power, the other side blip energy. And, when we go through this, there's some things that I wouldn't even think about. So in that Staying Power Delicious quadrant, what they have is the Negroni drink. And Negroni is a big deal now. In fact, I was just at a restaurant, forgot where I was, they had a whole Negroni menu of different drinks made with different negronis. Pilk, and I'll explain that in a second. Sexy Dirtbag Chefs, those were all in the Delicious and staying power. So when I look at pilk, basically it's Lindsay Lohan is the spokesperson for it and it's basically Pepsi with milk.
Sally:Isn't that with Laverne from Laverne and Shirley used to drink, she always drank milk and Pepsi?
Phil:Oh, I don't remember that. And then under the Delicious Blip Energy, rotisserie Chicken Man, Kendall Jenner's cucumber cut, which I didn't realize that Kendall Jenner knew how to cut a cucumber, Olivia Wild's salad dressing. And, I'm not sure that that's a thing at all. The Corn Kid, you know, which was a viral moment on the internet. When, when we go through some of these other things those that are distressing and have staying power, let's talk about those.
Sally:When I looked at this list, you know, some of the things that really came to my attention were a couple of things that we've talked about on the show here, and one of those being the green M&M's, how they changed. We talked about how they changed the green M&M, they took off her high heels and they put on sneakers on her and, you know, to give her a little bit more empowered woman look. And people didn't like it very much when they changed that M&M's. And then we've also talked about these charcuterie boards. There's butter boards, we're talking about fish boards. Now this has becoming a very, very popular trend. And so, you know, that one seems to have some staying power there. And yeah, there was another one that caught my attention too, which was the pink sauce, Phil. And, you know, my kids have brought up this to me. They said,"do you know what pink sauce is?" And immediately what came to mind for me was pink slime. Remember when we were talking about pink slime years ago? And we were completely grossed out. So I'd like to suggest to the 29 year old who developed this sauce in Florida that maybe he come up with a different name, but it is very popular and he is selling it for$20 a bottle. So, you know, maybe there's some staying power there.
Phil:Who knows? The weirdest one for me is this whole idea of butter boards. And for those who have not heard of butter boards, basically what it is, it's soft butter. The same way that you would have cheese, on a board, and it has different toppings that you could put on your butter. It has honey and nuts and things like that. And, you know, I think if I had a butter board, I would gag. I mean, I like butter on my toasts and stuff, but a butter board just doesn't work. Some good and bad news in the food world. The good news is that there's more job openings than ever before. According to the Consumer Brands Association the consumer package goods industry has upwards of 88,000 job openings. How? And the wages are up 5.1% higher than last year, 12.8% higher than November. In 2020 the average facility worker is now earning$21 and 57 cents per hour, which is great. But as, as, as we're hearing this good news, Pepsi has announced that they are laying off employees. We're seeing, you know, Coke taking buyouts, laying off people. We're, we're just seeing more and more companies laying off people from all levels, whether it be executive level, whether it be mid-management, whether it be lower level. And it's amazing to me that what we're seeing, and we, and we talked about this, you know, right before the right before the end of the year, that I think one of the biggest trends that we're gonna see this year has to do with more unionization has to do with, you know, this, this widening disparity of pay that's taking place. And by the way, the same time that Pepsi has said that they're laying off all these people, they're also announced outstanding growth in the third quarter, including a 16% increase in sales. The hikes include a 7% increase in the fourth quarter of the year. So the raising prices 10% and 12% in subsequent quarters. So these companies, while they're laying off people and they're raising prices, are making record profits,
Sally:Yes, there is, there are very mixed messages coming, coming out about the workforce. And, you know, one example I think of is, you know, I've shared with you, Phil, that the Walgreens down the street from me now is only open from nine in the morning till six at night. And the reason being is that they say that they can't find people to work. And we're, you know, all of these businesses that we're going into and buying food from, we're seeing them struggling with having a workforce. But then we also see that some companies are hiring a lot of people. So, I'm not sure what is going on, but there's definitely a disconnect in the messaging. And some consumers are going to get upset when they feel like they're being charged more, but the companies are making more money than they've made the last few years.
Phil:Absolutely. And this all has nothing to do with the pandemic. This just has to do, in my opinion, with being a food crime that we've got these companies that are just raising prices. Sure, we've got, we've got some supply chain issues. There's no question about it. We've got some ingredient problems, that are out there, but, when we see in the same sentence, you know, record profits for these companies and sort of a disconnect. Well, thanks Sally. On today’s Bullseye– it’s time to get Swiggy! Back on December 20, 1965 Chuck Barris(also a Drexel Grad, by the way) changed the way we looked at dating and relationships in a whole new way. Forget about relying on your mom or friend on fixing you up, or heading to a bar to‘try your luck’ to meet that special one. Barris brought dating to TV. The matchmaking was secretive– a guy or girl was on one side of a wall and on the other side were 3 hopefuls of the opposite sex who were asked questions and the‘winner’ would be selected based on their answers. It was also a show that agents pushed their rising stars to appear on. Farah Fawcett, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Selleck, Sally Filed, John Ritter, Lindsey Wagner and dozens more appeared alongside regular folks who wanted their shot at love– and TV stardom. Over the course of the series there were 2,000 dates and 20 couples actually went on to marry. The came the deluge of dating apps– eHarmony, Tinder, Thursday, Match, Bumble, Hinge, OKCupid, Happn and probably hundreds more that tie people together through a series of photos, bios, likes and dislikes and of course algorithms to make it all easy. Then we went back to TV, where reality shows like the Bachelor, Singletown, Catfish, Love Island and others sensationalized the dating process and looked for nothing more than the ultimate insult, soundbite or cheat. But no one really connected love and food until in August of 2019 we reported on The Lempert Report about a new trend– foodie calls. A trend, that hopefully has totally disappeared, where a person schedules a date with someone they aren’t really interested in just to get a free meal. Not quite matchmaking heaven. But now we have Swiggy’s Plate Date. its very similar to the dating game but the questions are all based on the contestants prior food purchases on the Swiggy food app. Before you reach for your phone to download it you need to know Swiggy and Plate Date is only in India– it is on YouTube so you can watch, laugh and cry– but you just can’t participate– yet. Swiggy’s head of brand marketing says that Swiggy and the show is rooted in an insight that food connects people. We know that. But think of the brilliance in marketing to bring it one step further. The show is highlighting foods of course, but also names the restaurant where the contestant purchased it from. Smart. Swiggy also designed the show to appeal to Gen Z and millennials. Smarter. This marketing also separates– and elevates– Swiggy from their competitors– Uber Eats, Zomato, Food Panda, Deliveroo and dozens more buy humanizing the whole idea of food delivery. Building it away from speed and price and making it about our relationships with foods– and what they can lead to. Having common tastes on burgers joints or the type of pizza toppings or if someone is choosing healthy or indulgent foods. What we know, especially about Gen Z and Millennials is that they love food– and according to many the social distancing and stay at home orders that we have experienced over the past few years has created the feeling of being alone more than ever and as we witnessed as the regulations were lifted a surge in people wanting to be with others– which created a groundswell at many bars and restaurants that sat empty for many months. This is really smart marketing and positioning and hats off to Swiggy. Will Plate Date be a global success and take over the franchise of the Housewives from‘wherever”? I doubt it– but if Chuck Barris was still alive, it’s an idea he would probably try. The Lempert Report is all about inspiring ideas, making our industry think and challenging each other. Let’s think about“being the shopper” and how we can bring our supermarkets and restaurants closer to meet their needs. I hope you’ll come back to join us on next week’s installment of The Lempert report LIVE when we focus on the biggest and best insights– and the things that really matter. Be sure to visit SupermarketGuru.com for the latest marketing analysis, issues and trends and don’t forget to join us back here next Monday at 2:30pm Eastern for more.