Smarter Dietary Guidelines, Non-Alcoholic Beer, and the Future of Food Advertising

What if there was a smarter approach to dietary guidelines that could significantly impact our health and the food industry? Get ready to be enlightened as we uncover Mexico's new dietary guidelines and the World Health Organization's latest tool to help protect kids from unhealthy food advertising. We'll dive into the potential industry effects of following these guidelines and discuss WHO Europe's nutrient profile model, which has classified over 100,000 products to set a standard for child-targeted advertising.

But wait, there's more! Discover the rising trend of non-alcoholic beer drinking in the US, particularly among men and dads, as we explore the lifestyle of those who prefer these brews. We'll also discuss the opportunity for retailers to promote mocktails in their stores, the concept of food halls, and Hivee's plan to provide meal solutions for the growing population of hybrid workers. Don't miss this engaging conversation packed with insights into the evolving world of food, diets, and advertising!

Transcript

Phil: 0:05

Welcome Lempert Report LIVE On today's broadcast what we can learn from our foods in Mexico. The World Health Organization releases a new tool How millennial dads are leading the non-alcohol beer trend. Hi-v's move into dinner. The silver lining for grocery delivery And, on the bullseye, japan's newest vending machine will surprise you. Let's get started.

Phil: 0:34

Last week, Marion Nestle, our friend in Food Politics, posted Mexico's terrific new guidelines, dietary guidelines, and I'm just going to read them through and talk a little bit about what she had to say. Number one breastfeed babies for the first six months. Number two eat more vegetables and fruits. Three eat beans. Four choose whole grains. Five eat less beef and processed meats. Six avoid ultra-processed foods. Seven drink water. Eight avoid alcohol. Nine be physically active. And 10, enjoy meals with family and friends.

Phil: 1:12

You know 10 relatively simple things, but I think that what Mexico has done with these is really much smarter than as our guidelines. They come out every five years, just overcomplicate things. Marion also points out that if the Mexican population actually does follow these guidelines, she's highlighted six groups of people that are going to have problems. Industries, infant formula, beef, processed meats, ultra-processed foods, sugar, sweetened beverages and alcohol. And also there's three more industries are probably going to be in trouble Pharmaceutical drugs, private medicine and insurance companies. And her last statement is she hopes the new US dietary guidelines will find these inspiring. So it's a little twist of what we normally see, but again, let's not forget that Mexico, you know, had this ban not a ban but, you know, like a big, big black cross on high sugar foods that went out there And it looks like, you know, mexico is being a lot smarter than we are.

Sally: 2:33

Yes, 100% agree, phil. These are very, very modern approaches to our dietary guidelines, and I'm sure Marion Nessel is also celebrating the fact that there's been no interference by the food industry and brands that have junk foods. They have not been a part of creating these dietary guidelines And I know she's very big on that. But also, you know, these are dietary guidelines that are pointing out specific problem areas that modern Mexicans and, i believe, americans are facing, but also it addresses eating better for our planet and you know, and being more environmentally conscious in the way that we eat.

Sally: 3:22

Tackling the alcohol Mexico has a has a heavy drinking population. Three out of 10 report that they have heavy alcohol consumption. Well, so I really, i really like the fact that they're being aggressive about it and saying you know, avoid alcohol. We want you to just completely avoid it. And there are some recommendations if you are not going to completely avoid it, you know, on how to limit your intake, but it is very bold of them. And also with the with the breastfeeding you know that is a wonderful way for children to start their life consuming naturally in that way. Not every woman can breastfeed, so formula is necessary in some cases, but in the cases of women that can. It's great for them to feel supported and encouraged and and helped get it getting started that way.

Phil: 4:15

Yep, i totally agree with you, with Marion, and, and I just hope that Over here, you know, we get smart and we look at how simple Mexico has addressed these problems and we follow suit. The World Health Organization just published new nutritional criteria to protect kids from marketing that promotes unhealthy foods and non-alcoholic beverages. It's called the who Europe nutrient profile model and basically what they did is they classified all products. They have its 10,000 products. No, i'm sorry, it's over a hundred thousand products that they've ranked and which is 108,578 products that they've done, and basically it's a guideline for Europe for what you can and cannot advertise to kids, because what they really want to do is get kids on the right diet early.

Phil: 5:24

And we know that we have here a major problem with advertising to kids for food, and they've broken it down to three categories low, which is five percent of reference intake. Medium, 25 percent of reference intake. High, 95 percent of reference intake, and they've calculated on fat, a total fat, saturated fat, free sugars and sodium. And you know, we can only hope that this takes hold and we do something similar here. We've had major fights for years about advertising to kids and a lot of the companies have said yes, you know we'll put in things, but then social media hits the roof and we're seeing, you know, a lot more on social media of advertising junk food and foods that are high in sugar to kids. And let's not forget that you know, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer are the diseases that are linked to our diets with, you know, high levels of saturated fats, free sugars, sodium and the like. So if we can, you know, bring this to our shores. I think it could do some good for us as well.

Sally: 6:41

Yes, i agree that we do need to set the bar somewhere. We need to set a standard that food companies need to meet in order to advertise to children. Our children are spending a lot of time on TikTok and video games, and we've already seen reports and issues with products such as energy drinks being heavily promoted on these platforms. You know when these children are probably way too young to be consuming these types of types of beverages. So setting the bar somewhere is great. You know, in this European region where they are putting these rules in place or putting this tool in place for companies to assess their products, 46 of those 53 countries have more than 50% of the population that is obese, and one in three children are living there overweight and or obese. So it is definitely necessary that we take some steps to protect our children so that we can change the trajectory of our eating habits and they can grow up with better habits.

Phil: 7:43

Yeah, because you know if we can change behavior, it's going to stick, versus a lot of these drugs like Osempic now and things that and we've talked about that before that people are taking so that they can drop 20, 25 pounds, but as soon as you stop taking it, that weight comes back on and you really haven't changed behavior. So it's really important. Talking about alcohol, you know so we have the guidelines from Mexico. you know non-alcohol Here there's a report that just come out from UGov US non-alcoholic beer report 2023, and what they found is the number of non-alcoholic beer drinkers here in the US has increased more than eight times since the year 2020. Millennial dads in the northeast are driving the trend. So I guess you know it's a good time to be in the non-alcoholic beer business.

Sally: 8:42

Yes, and this is not surprising. We're seeing that trend here in Nashville, especially with our younger generations, as people are abstaining from alcohol or limiting their alcohol contact. In fact, I was at a music festival with my family this weekend and the radio station producer putting on the event was talking with us and said that one of the major acts that was headlining had requested that they bring in mocktails, A non-alcoholic beverage sponsor, because so many people are leaning that way now. It is a fascinating trend and I love that. the beer drinking has caught on in the non-alcoholic world, going from 0.6% of the US adult population drinking in a beer in 2020 to 5.2% in 2023. It's so interesting because we're seeing this rise mostly in men and particularly dads.

Phil: 9:46

Yes, and what you did also is they developed profiles and some of the stats that are really interesting. Nearly three-quarters of non-alcoholic beer drinkers work out more than once a week, versus just 50% of beer drinkers. They're not drinking beer, but they're working out more. 49% describe themselves as meat eaters non-alcoholic beer versus 74% of beer drinkers. 42% of non-alcoholic beer drinkers watch competitive video gaming I'm not even sure what competitive video gaming is. You can help me out on that in a second Versus 17% of beer drinkers and 76% of non-alcoholic beer drinkers listen to podcast weekly, versus just 38% of beer drinkers. I think that it's really reflective of a whole healthier, smarter lifestyle. It just so happens to be that they want non-alcoholic beer.

Sally: 10:57

It seems to be that way. That can be carried over also into the mocktail category, encouraging your shoppers to find different ways to make mocktails. This gets them shopping. the entire store You have the produce section to pull from. the frozen food section You've got herbs to pull from and sweeteners and carbonated drinks and seltzer waters. There's all different kinds of ways to pull ingredients from the entire store to make really cool mocktails.

Phil: 11:26

Great point. A lot of the registered dieticians that are out there in their videos have given out recipes for mocktails as well. Maybe promote it not only on social media with videos, but in circulars and your ads everything else Great point, sally. Talking about retailers, hivee has decided to go after dinner. Ryan Robertson, executive Vice President for Parishables, is quoted in supermarket news by saying 70% of our customers say they have no idea what they're going to make for dinner at four o'clock.

Phil: 12:03

Their concept of food halls is ready to provide very high quality products and a variety. Now their food halls are a little different than your typical grocery. They offer six restaurants in their food halls Chai Chi and Hibachi, nori Sushi Market Grill, walburgers, long Island Deli and Mia Italian. What they're really focused on is a family being able to come sit down in Hivee. Go to these different stands if you would. So everybody. If you want pizza, you can have pizza. If Tony wants sushi, he can have sushi. If I want Chinese food, i can have Chinese food, but we can all sit together as well. So it's really a smart idea. What they've also talked about is they're now in their convenience store, which is called Fast and Fresh. They're focused on meal replacement stores versus your typical candy gum, cigarettes, gasoline and so on. And they really want to do. What Cheets has done for years is make their convenience store a destination for food.

Sally: 13:23

I absolutely love this and I am one of those 70% that, at four o'clock, cannot think of what to have for dinner, so I really would love to see this in my neighborhood. In fact, high V I just read this morning is it's going to be opening up in Tennessee in three different locations. So yay for us. But but yes, this fast and free fresh convenience store caught my eye too, and that that being a place for for meal solutions, and particularly what we're gonna talk about in a minute about about hybrid workers. You know hybrid workers are are on our ordering food online and they're ordering prepared meals and they want these easy takeout options.

Phil: 14:03

So I can see this fast and fresh convenience store really, really working out yeah, and and talking about the state of the food, of food and beverage report, by morning consult they found that 14% of workers at in-person jobs say they ordered groceries online on a weekly basis. 25% of remote workers said that they do. Hybrid workers offer food lot food online, sorry, at more than double the rate of 31%. So you're exactly right. I mean when you, when you have these hybrid workers. Even though we're seeing we're seeing food delivery decline in a lot of markets, it's time for all these delivery companies, whether it be Instacart or shipped or whoever else, to really focus on hybrid workers, because that's going to be a marketplace that grows for them and there's a lot of them out there. 20 million US workers, according to IRI and NPD, do so from home or through hybrid of in-person and remote work.

Sally: 15:10

So you've got this marketplace of 20 million people who this is perfect for yes, i think people of these people are time savers and they've really learned the art of being, of living an efficient life and, you know, not getting in their cars as much and going back and forth to places. Many of them are parents.

Phil: 15:30

They also might be, have a little bit higher income than the average that are ordering, but it but it's a great opportunity for supermarkets to get on board and offer, just like this high V store is not only offering, you know, buying your basic staple products there, but also we've got prepared meals for you, because these are, these are our time-saving shoppers and you know it's so important because, for example, this weekend I had to go to a store and wanted to pick up some kind of prepared food, so so that we didn't have to cook, and the assortment was horrible, wound up getting a roasted chicken because that was the only thing that looked edible, and every everything else in there in their prepared food case and so on, was either white or brown. They didn't for vegetables. The choice was corn and I wouldn't call this a vegetable, but macaroni and cheese. That that was the two sides you could get. They also had some mashed potatoes that looked really bad, but I mean there were chicken wings and it was just horrible and when I look at that it's really a missed opportunity and It is what it is So. Good for high V. Good for Nashville getting three high Vs and you know I want a high V right here in Santa Monica. I'd be very happy if they did that. Thanks, alex.

Phil: 17:01

On today's bullseye, the Guardian reports that Japan has extended its natural disaster preparations to vending machines which will offer free food and drink in the event of a major earthquake or typhoon. Experts recently raised the possibility experts in Japan of a mega quake that occurring along the Nankai trough off Japan's Pacific coast within the next 20 years, from 50% to 60%, and about 90% within the next 40 years. It's in a beta test and the two vending machines have been installed in the western coastal city of Akao, located in a region that seismologists say is vulnerable to a powerful earthquake that is expected to hit the country's central and southwest Pacific coast over the next few decades. Now, these vending machines contain about 300 bottles or cans of soft drinks, 150 emergency food items, which include nutritional supplements, and have been installed near buildings that have been designated as evacuation shelters. This is a really smart idea. These machines are designed to unlock automatically and make their contents available free of charge in the event of a heavy rain warning or an evacuation order after a quake of an upper five or higher on the Japanese seismotic intensity scale of seven.

Phil: 18:31

According to the newspaper located in Manchini Shimbun and I apologize to all of our Japanese viewers and listeners for my pronunciation, let me get that out of the way in non-disaster times, the vending machine contents have to be paid for, no question about it. It's only free in case of an emergency. The manufacturer of these vending machines is EarthCorp, which has a factory in the city and says that the machines are the first of the kind in Japan, one of the world's most seismologically active countries Sorry guys, pronunciation isn't going well today and where increasingly powerful typhoons have caused widespread flooding and landslides in recent years. A city official was quoted in the newspaper as saying we expect that the stockpile will lead to the safety and security of our residents.