Food Marketing 101

As the commercials during the Super Bowl prove, success is pretty much just all about marketing and how you present a certain product.

Fashion aside, this is especially true with food.

Would you prefer to eat “soup” or “food-flavored tea”? Drink “coffee” or “bean water”? In other words, some items have greatly benefitted from clever categorization, while others could use a little bit of help in the PR department.

GOOD

Salads–Salad has become synonymous with “healthy,” due in part to the fact that they adopted “salad dressing” as an accompaniment instead of the phrase, “lettuce gravy.” Things like a traditional salad with greens and veggies helped ensure the “healthy” illusion of salad that things like taco salad and potato salad have benefited from. You know, a burrito dumped into a fried shell and slathered with sour cream and three shreds of lettuce and a bowl of mayonnaise with specks of potato. Vegetables for the win!

Head Cheese—Lies! NOT CHEESE!

Tofu–While I’m a vegan, I can’t tolerate soy so tofu is out. However, I used to be able to eat it and know that tofu is basically just a codependent block of coagulated bean curd. It has no flavor and takes on whatever it’s cooked with, but I guess “tofu” sounds better than “codependent coagulated curd,” although whether it tastes better or not is up for debate. 

Sweet Breads—Lies! NOT BREAD!

English Muffins–Muffins are generally thought of as a breakfast food, which we’ll get to in a minute, but English muffins are not really a “muffin.” They’re more like a butter sponge one has to extract from the (unplugged) toaster with a knife, putting to use the hours you played Operation as a kid. However, I guess “butter sponge” sounds a little less fancy (but honestly, still kind of delicious.)

Fortune Cookies–Cookie Monster would lose his shit if presented with this as a “cookie.” The fortune cookie is to cookies as Kim Kardashian is to acting. You can label it whatever you want, but that doesn’t mean that it’s any good.  Every fortune should just read, “This is a stale imitation of food and you could eat this piece of paper and not know the difference.” 

QUESTIONABLE

Radish--This gets the award for the most tasteless vegetable that also has that capacity to burn your mouth with each bite. It’s a polarizing food, which is why I see this as being how it was named:

Person 1: I love this vegetable! It’s so rad!

Person 2: Meh. It’s not that great. It’s more like rad-ish. Hey! Let’s go with that!

BAD 

Now let’s take a look at the names of foods that could use a little more help.

Milk Duds–While many people enjoy spending three hours trying to chew three small chocolate caramel confections, they are essentially named after a dairy product that has failed. I can just imagine how that meeting went:

“Hey! What should we call these? Chewy Chocolate Caramels?  Lactose Losers? I know! Let’s go with Milk Duds!”

Muffins–Let’s be honest here. While English muffins benefit from the reputation of muffins, muffins could greatly up their cred by going with what they essentially are—naked cupcakes. For most versions, adding frosting is the only distinction between the two, but I guess I understand the hesitation.

It’s acceptable to eat a 500-calorie muffin for breakfast under the guise of “healthy” whereas eating something with “cake” in the name wouldn’t work. Unless it’s a pancake smothered in syrup, of course, because that just makes logical sense.

Ugli Fruit–This is technically a form of tangelo and while a bit unsightly, was the term “ugli” really necessary? Were these people trying to make them sound unappealing so that they could hoard them all for themselves? I would go with “unique” fruit or “has a great personality” fruit. “Ugli” just seems a bit cruel.

Leftovers–Finally, people complain about leftovers all the time, most likely due in part to the fact that they’re considered scraps that are just “left over.” True, sometimes they’re not as stellar when performing in the second act, but if you think of them as “edible encores” it might spice things up a bit.

Speaking of spice, how did Allspice corner the market on that one? Talk about a confident condiment.

At any rate, bon appetite, my friends.

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