Big Food: For better or for worse?

In a recent article in the New Yorker magazine titled, “Snacks for a Fat Planet“, John Seabrook interviews PepsiCo‘s CEO Indra Nooyi and discovers that the second biggest food company in the world (after Nestle) wants to be a “good company”. Why would a company that sells products (Lays Crisps, Pepsi Cola, Gatorade, Doritos, 7up, Quaker Oats, etc) to three billion of the earth’s inhabitants push the idea that it wants to be “good”? Because, the results of increasing consumption of food from snack and beverage companies like PepsiCo is that the western world is suffering from an epidemic of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. In 2008, one health study estimated that obesity cost the US $147B in health care charges and resulted in 300,000 deaths. Regulators around the world are all considering ways to reduce their health budgets and patterns of food consumption are in their sights. As a good CEO, Nooyi is looking into the future and trying to position her company to thrive in any newly regulated food market. She also sees an opportunity to meet the desires of an aging population who are becoming more conscious of the nutritional value of their food.

The resources available to PepsiCo to develop new products are astonishing. The robotic tongue described by Seabrook was a revelation to me: made by culturing cells and injecting the genetic sequences of the four known taste receptors (leaving out salt) and hard wiring these cells to a computer. This robotic tongue is used to screen for new compounds and food sources that humans might find tasty. They have vast armies of technicians and scientists looking for ways to improve the experience of consumption, at less cost to produce, and now, with less ‘harmfuls’ such as sodium and sugar. The idea that people might just eat less is obviously not considered. “Its not a question of selling less. Its a question of selling the right stuff”, says Nooyi.

A couple of things struck me about this article. The first was, if PepsiCo didn’t exist, would be have to invent it? Homo sapiens evolved to desire energy dense foods (fats and sugars) and crave salt. Over the last 100,000 years of modern humanity, it has only been recently that fulfilling a hunger pang has been as easy as opening a bag of crisps. Eating such energy dense foods hits all the right pleasure receptors. Some of us have more of these receptors and require more “hits” to get the pleasure. These people are most at risk of obesity, because they need to eat more to feel good.

So have our primitive desires created a huge market for sugary, fatty, salty products, that mean that the companies who supply them become huge themselves? Or have Big Food companies manipulated us with their clever marketing to create an aspiration for their products? PepsiCo and CocaCola both started out life as fake medicinal products, in a time when quackery was common and scientific studies on the claims of foods scarce. Have they continued to sell us false dreams, like tobacco companies selling the cool, and hiding the cancer? Or have they just been chasing profits and found that the “fun”, energy dense foods happen to sell best and not given much thought to what the implications would be?

The second thing that struck me about this article is that mass over-consumption may be a fleeting phenomenon. The last 50 years has been relatively unprecedented in terms of improvements in agricultural productivity and access to energy supplies. At the beginning of the 21st Century, agricultural productivity growth is declining, we have likely seen peak oil production at the same time as the world population continues its exponential growth. Some of the technologies being developed by Big Food to improve the efficiency of food manufacturing may turn out to be quite useful in a world where food is much more expensive and scarce than it is now.

So, my question is, are Big Food companies like PepsiCo and Nestle part of an axis of evil that only supply sub-standard food that makes us sick and so should be driven from existence? Or could they be enticed to be a part of a food revolution that brings together the desire for tasty food, with the need for nutritious food? Given their market dominance, do we have a choice?

Written by Paul Dalby

@PresidentDalby

Food or Foe

I once made a chocolate cake that had a half-life of 68 billion years. It was so bad my brothers wouldn’t eat it, the dog wouldn’t eat it and when we climbed the windmill and chucked it off the top it left a crater they now call the Geranium Gorgeous.

My mistake was I cooked it in Mum’s new microwave. It was 1988. She was suspicious of the new fangled device and would read out studies linking microwaves to cancer from the newspaper; finally Dad bought one, second-hand, from the Parilla Football club. It was big and boxy; it had a dial and a wood grain laminate finish. We tried roasts and bread and custard and poaching eggs in it. We tried fried rice and rissoles and tiramisu. We tried hot dogs and mock fish and, yes, even chocolate cake.

Turns out they really are only good for is heating babies bottles, de-congealing nail polish, popping pop-corn and of course, the best thing kitchen invention ever, the timer.

I cooked a lot when I was growing up. My mother worked ‘off-farm’ and I was the eldest, a girl, and so as I got older I cooked dinner when Mum was going to be late, I helped at shearing by plating up mountains of soup and roasts and trifle for the shearers mountainous an appetite. I enjoyed home economics; biscuits were my forte, something Mum never mastered, and something I love, eating, dunking in my tea, and cooking.

This week I’ve asked friends, family, colleagues and strangers about kitchen disasters. A colleague told me of her stir fry with two-minute noodles, rubbery beef, and mushy vegetables, my sister-in-law has a baked bean and sausage slow cooked casserole war story and my mother once served prawn crackers at a 1970s dinner party where she was trying to impress. She just forgot to cook them…

Cooking, as in most learned skills, relies on trial and error. Some people, like me, love recipes and feel a little out of control when I don’t follow them religiously (hint: this is why I am good at pastry), others, like Sir Geoffrey, can’t stand being told what to do and just add a pinch of that and a whiff off this.

Cooking at home can be incredibly stressful, and this is before brick cakes and congealed stir-fries. You’ve been bruised and battered by work, the traffic, your kids are making Attila the Hun look like a nice little boy and you’ve had your period for 9 days. Or you haven’t had it. You have new neighbours who have cut down all the trees and borded up the windows and your in-laws are coming to stay. Forever. You get home to find the cat has pissed in the freshly folded washing and you have another fine for double ranking outside the school last week. And you look at the calendar and it says ‘meatballs in tomato sauce with mashed sweet potato and autumn vegetables.’ And you look at the Maccas coupons under the magnet on the fridge. And you hear your villainous children and feel your tummy rumble.

And you open the fridge, the back door and the cupboard in a move to make Nadia Comăneci jealous and yell ‘who wants to help me make meatballs?’

And hear nothing.

‘And have ice-cream for dessert?’

Now, you may go to MacDonald’s, you may open a tin of spaghetti, you may heat up some fish fingers and these are all things that are ok in my book. I’ve had whole weeks of poached eggs on toast. When I was six my friend came to stay with us for a month or so while her Mum was in hospital and she only are Vegemite sandwiches. For four weeks. And she’s fine. I’m fine. Your kids will be fine. Your partner will live and your in-laws, with any luck, after a month of baked bean and sausage casserole, might move out. It’s just food. You aren’t feeding yourself, your mate or your children, live grenades. Cut yourself some slack. Plan a bit, shop a bit, cook a bit. Live a lot.

Oh, you want to know what I do? Before I go to the Queen Victoria Market on a Saturday morning I check the fridge and the pantry and write a quick menu on my calendar, I then write a shopping list, go to the market, park illegally out the front, do the shopping, drink a few lattes at Coffea, eat a few macaroons, go to the supermarket on the way home and then cook what’s on my menu. Some nights I just can’t face it so we have eggs on toast. Or tinned soup. Sometimes we get a pizza on the way home. But most nights we eat what’s on the calendar. It takes some practice, forgiving yourself when things don’t turn out, smiling at you disastrous attempt of Asian fusion pumpkin soup with peanut butter and chilli flakes and coconut cream.

Chocolate cake anyone? I think I’ve got some, somewhere…

Questions for Monday Night’s chat at 8pm EST #AustraliaFare

1. What is your worst cooking disaster? Extra points for social embarrassment

2. Best recovery from disaster

3. Best meal to cook when you are feeling lazy

4. Most idiot proof meal

5. Favourite ‘get out of cooking’ ploy

6. Best hangover cure

7. Easiest meals to clean up from

8. Favourite heirloom recipe

9. Best meal for Rapture

The New Subversives

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. Isaac Newton

In Australia a burgeoning movement of backyard and small scale producers and processors are finding ways to rebel against the powerful might of the retail duopoly of Coles and Woolworths. These two big companies are doing what companies quite rightly do – they look for ways to maximize their profits. What this has meant for thousand of food-related businesses in Australia is that they have lost access to lucrative shelf space and so to a huge customer base and Coles and Woolworths expand their “home-brand” range at the expense of other brands.

Australians are cunning optimists though. Producers and manufacturers are finding new ways to create distinct products that the Big Two will struggle to copy. They are finding new distribution channels that circumvent the big supermarkets. Farmers markets, eBay and independent grocers have given growers and businesses an opportunity to maintain a connection to their customers. Some like the Kangaroo Island Grain Company largely bypass the Australian market altogether and sell predominantly overseas. Innovators such as Richard Gunner, Saskia Beer, Bremer Cafe, Luv-a-Duck and Clare Valley Free Range Eggs are creating high quality food products that have their own devoted fan base. The Internet is replete with thousands of micro-brands jostling for attention.

While it can be argued that the government has allowed too much market power to be concentrated in too few companies in food retail, there are still plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurial farmers, producers and marketeers. The Internet, and especially new broadband and social media, detracts from the market power of Coles and Woolworths. Lord Professor @fang has even suggested ‘flash markets’ held in the carparks of our major supermarkets, to claim back some ‘shelf space’ for smaller, local producers. These would be run via word of mouth through social media and be organised at short notice. Very Australian – cheeky, subversive and fun.

In this weeks #AustraliaFare chat on Monday 16 May at 8pm EST, we want to discuss how cunning optimists are beating the big two supermarkets and building successful food businesses.

1. What are some of the wonderful Australian food producers/manufacturers/marketeers who defy the big two supermarkets?

2. What are some cunning ways of selling and marketing food outside of the big two supermarkets?

3. What are important keys to success for selling food in Australia?

4. Are there any services available to help people market their food products in Australia or to overseas markets?

5. Who do you think does food marketing the best in Australia?

6. Promote your farmers market, internet outlet, distribution channel or products

Food-o-phile

If one looks up the Australian entry in the most recent edition of Larousse Gastromomique one finds a couple of paragraphs and a large map. It speaks of pie floaters and tea drinking and Anzac ‘cakes’.  Gastromomique asserts that Australia has no regional cuisines, except ‘perhaps’ the Barossa, which maintains a German wine and food culture.

Then again, the book is a self-proclamined bible of French gastronomy so it’s no surprise that ‘Australia’ doesn’t have pages and pages about the fabulous food found in Oz.

I make a weekly pilgrimage  to the Queen Victoria Market. Ostensibly to shop for the week, but its more than that. The layers of smells and the kaleidescope of produce suck me back week after week. And even the regular clipping of my heels from errant trolley drivers and the foodie tour groups who stand in the middle of the Dairy Hall, while the rest of us swarm around them like cyclists round the Arc de Triomphe, isn’t enough to remove the smile from my stomach on a Saturday morning.

The first thing I buy are biscuits.  Four dainty macaroons to be exact, from the Queen Vic Market Cake Shop. I buy the same three flavours every week, Belgium Espresso, Salted Caramel and Lemon Meringue and I ask shop assistant to choose the fourth, and take them back to the car and settle the little balls of goodness on the dashboard, to bring them to room temperature so when I bite into them in an hour or so they are crisp on the outside and goody and delightful on the inside.

My shopping route reads like a tour of South Eastern Australia, Warnambool butter from Curds and Whey, Grandmother Ham from Preston at Bills Farm, Ottway Pork from Hagens Meats and Tasmanian salmon from Happy Tuna. 

I didn’t set out with the purpose of buying Australian grown produce, and there are of course exceptions, Callibaut chocolate, Martelli pasta, taleggio cheese, and Cravero parmigiano reggiano. Sometimes when I want to splurge I’ll buy some Itallian proscuitto and Colston Barret Stilton and when I get home eat it straight from the packet.

There are other iconic Australian foods that I enjoy with relish (and some a little too often) Tim Tams, Haigh’s chocolate, Milo, Fruchocs and Farmers Union Iced Coffee.

And of course there is the food that is farmed and grown in Australia, from garlic to tomatoes, beef to baramundi and wheat to French lentils, the sheer variety of food stuffs is amazing.

I’m in awe of Australian farmers, who continue to produce more with less. Who provide us with beautiful , bountiful harvests. I’m always keen to try new foods grown and manufactured locally, so I recently switched from Maldon Sea Salt to River Murray Salt Flakes. Mainly because they are pink and I was born very close to the Murray. I’m in love with how pretty the grains are and how subtle the taste is. I do use them ‘just for good’, most recently in some crisp salted oatmeal white chocolate biscuits that I made. With Belgium Callibuat chocolate and Aussie oats.

Australian food, I love it.

What’s your favourite?

Launch of Australia Fare

Australia Fare launches as a twitter chat forum (@AustraliaFare) this Monday 9th May at 8pm. You can find more background on Australia Fare here.

This week’s topic will be about what you love about Australian food.

The questions will be:

1. What is your all time favourite Australian food (more than one allowed) and why?

2. Where are great places to buy quality food you cannot normally buy in a supermarket near you (give location)?

3. What international food do you buy because you cannot get the same quality here in Australia?

4. What is the ultimate health food?

5. What is the best food for seducing someone?

6. Fantasy Food: If you wished someone would bring back or invent a new food item, what would it be?