The Pickle Project: Vlasic Stackers and Me.
Dear Jon:
Here is a minor issue that drives me crazy.
Branding is the big buzz word of the 90's. This trend in the supermarket is driving me crazy. Companies create a brand, get people to remember it and love it. Then they extend the brand. More variations of the product. Next is market research, who likes what? Finally, they kill the variations that are not hot sellers and make new variations. Company maximize returns to stock holders and everyone is happy.
But what about the poor consumer who isn’t in step with the majority taste buds? With a few notable exceptions (see New Coke), if a company decides to kill your favorite product version or reformulate the way it is made, you are pretty much screwed. My dear friend Ms. W calls this process, "The man who lives over the hill." This man keeps track of which foods you like and when he is sure it is you favorite, he kills the products.
Let me give you few examples, from three major guy food groups, Pickles, potato chips and sandwich bread.
First, Vlasic pickles. Like any normal fast-food gobbling America, I expect my pickles to be round, just like God intended. Vlasic, in their need for something new and different, decided that what we really wanted were pickles sliced lengthwise. They called them Stackers™ so they could get that trademark (Lengthwise Pickle Strips™ was probably taken). Since they only paid for so much space at the supermarket (I know all about shelving fees) they decided that round pickles would simply disappear and all people from now on could choose what ever kind of pickle they want, as long as it is a Stacker. Now because of the economics of the food industry there are only so many companies that can afford the money to display their products. I couldn't show my displeasure with Stackers by buying Brand X pickles cut the right way because only four different versions of Stackers were available. I'm tired of being ignored when it comes to foods I like getting phased out based on some focus group testing done in some other state, or marketing and sales strategies that ignore the wishes of consumers.
I wrote them a letter to express my displeasure (see below). I thought it was pretty clever and compelling, and the response I got? So sorry, can't help you, but here are some coupons for the wonderful new Stacker™ pickle!
The FOX Sports Pickle Mascot! I'd hate to
meet him in a dark alley!
The latest trick is diversity WITHIN a brand. So even though it LOOKS like you have a bunch of choices for toothpaste, they are all just variations of Colgate or Crest. Why do they do this? Well because if there are 25 different variations of Colgate no other company can use that room to get its toothpaste in the consumer's hands. I'm sure this has to do with merger mania in American companies.
Cavity Creeps Attack! Demand more shelf space, better dental plan.
Another annoying food trick is the reformulation of the product. For some people this isn't an issue, but I'm allergic to corn syrup. My favorite BBQ potato chips from Eagle Snacks changed the oil they fried the chips in from Canola oil to "one or more of the following oils" (corn, safflower, something else). Now I'm sure from a cost perspective this makes sense. And to save more money they don't bother to print up separate labels to tell you which specific oil they used. But that assumes that all oils taste the same. And it doesn’t take into consideration the needs of the people who are allergic to one of those oils. I wrote them a letter about this situation, but the company went belly up about a week after they got my letter. (Boy did I show them!)
My most recent tale of woe has to do with sandwich bread. Most commercial breads are now made with high fructose corn syrup. I found two loafs of bread from Orowheat that didn't have corn syrup. One was their original and the other was made with oatbran (made when oatbran-everything was all the rage). I liked the oatbran version better and bought it regularly for years. This time I hoped to avoid the fate of the chips so I wrote them letters early on telling them "I love the product, please don't kill it and I'm allergic to corn syrup, so please don't reformulate the product with corn syrup". I sent two letters as I noticed them coming out with more and more new brands. (New Country Potato! Country Cracked Wheat! Country Cracked Egg Potato!) All of them used corn syrup. The sent back letters thanking me for writing and 2 coupons for .35 cents off of any bread they make.
"My Parents ate genetically
modified corn, but I'm fine!"
Another question is, what's with all the corn sweeteners in everything? Whatever happened to cane sugar? I blame the people at Archer Daniels Midland (Feeding and nourishing a growing world --with corn syrup.™). ADM to pay 400 million to settle corn syrup suit
"A lonely grain of corn" is a
GREAT song by Uncle Bonsai!
Well the letters didn't work because last week I noticed that Bran'ola was gone. It had been pushed aside by the new breads. I'm sure their "Original" one is the next to go. I don't know what to do. I don't think I can rally people to complain like they did with New Coke. I've written letters to the company, I've mentioned this to friends but just bringing it up makes me sound like a persnickety nut case. I'm sure people are thinking, "Don't you have any REAL problems to worry about Spocko? There are 38 million people in Africa alone that are victims of a vast hunger crisis. I'm sure the folks in Africa would love to have your little pickle problem."
And they would be right to say that, but I guess it is kind of a quality of life issue. It deals with what happens when one big company pushes out competition with their own products. While Vlasic is busy creating a new method to cut pickles (Ovals! Stars, Hearts, Clovers!) maybe they are figuring out how better to feed the world. But I somehow doubt it. Since I have no other choices I can't easily vote with my pocketbook to buy other similar foods. Vlasic owns the pickle section, if you don't want Stackers you're screwed. There is certain powerlessness in not having a say in the contents of the foods you eat. I've been reduced to a demographic in a region that has been told, "52 percent of the demographic in San Francisco like Stackers. If Stackers are the only pickles available for three months then other people will learn to like them too."
Before games Jose Conseco would work out his 'roid rage in disguise.
Here is my original Pickle letter. I wonder what ever happened to the Executive in charge of pickle products. I do know for a while they brought back hamburger dills but cut THICKER (so they could be different) and now they are back to Stackers and the new Ovals™ to which the have added, you guessed it. CORN SYRUP! Because you just can’t get enough sugar in your dill pickles.
Why didn’t they keep the original? Because they know they have you by the pickle.
Executive in charge of pickle products
Vlasic Foods, Inc.
Camden, NJ
08103 -1701
Dear Vlasic product managers:
I know how the new product marketing game works. You try and extend your brand by creating new products and selling consumers on the idea that they need this new product. So you sacrifice some of your shelf space for your current products in order to build a market for a new products.
But guess what? This consumer hates your new product, the "Stacker" chip. Unfortunately, it has totally taken up the shelf space that was devoted to your original hamburger dill chips. Even if I wanted to buy the original hamburger dill chips, I could not. I have been to three different stores in the San Francisco Bay area trying to find regular old hamburger dill chips. All of them have been replaced by your "stacker" chips.
Most recently in a store I saw rows and rows of "Stackers" not a single regular hamburger dill chip jar from Vlasic. So I bought another brand from called Springfield (let me guess, you are the maker of those chips for too.) that I didn’t like as much, but at least the chips were round.
Yes, I did try the stacker chips but I did not like them. You can only mess around with brand loyalty for so long until people get pissed. I don't know how long you are going to try and force the stacker chips down people's throats, no pun intended, until you realize that you are losing whatever market share of the pickle business that you originally had.
Wake up and smell the coffee, do some current market research, check how your products are moving (or NOT moving) in the local stores and change your strategy. If we are not buying them (and I'm guessing I'm not the only one who isn't) stop trying to force us to buy them by ONLY offering one configuration of the chips on the shelves. If it is the stores that are screwing up and filling the shelves incorrectly, let them know it is annoying to the consumer. I would much rather have a choice to try a new product based on a discount or a promotion rather then removing my regular brand to force me to chose the new brand. Frankly, it's a stupid move.
Now maybe you think I'm a nut to get so worked up over pickle shapes, but I'm tired of being ignored when it comes to foods I like getting phased out based on some focus group testing done in some other state, or marketing and sales strategies that ignore the wishes of consumers. Most people won't write a letter, but will simply stop buying your products. Don't be the New Coke of the pickle industry.
Sincerely ,
Spocko.
Photoshop from fellow farker veganarian
14 Comments:
Maybe your upset tum is from some company sneaking in corn syrup into something.
I hear you on product placement crap. I feel sometimes that the Vons store I buy from purposely pulls products to see if I will change brands. Usually it is a cheaper and less well made item for slightly less money, and often less tasty.
It would be fascinating to see the personal info they have on customers (have the Vons card for the deductions) and how they use it. They know more about me and my purchasing whims than I know myself, which is more than spooky.
After the Vons/Albertson/Ralph's strike where the company royally screwed the work force, I have decided to try and buy less crap, show no loyality to any store, and really carefully select what I will buy.
It is a corporate world and we are just the obedient purchasers of their production line. Why on earth should they care what we think or need?
"Usually it is a cheaper and less well made item for slightly less money, and often less tasty." *sigh*
Talk about repeating myself several times in one sentence. Need more caffeine.
Speaking as a Brit expat, I hear you on the whole dumping scads of corn syrup into everything. In fact, if you like your cola you might as well see about importing it from Europe, because EU regs require that GMOs be declared, and some US corn might contain genetically modified stuff.
The worst thing is that some brands don't seem to realize what was recently the subject of an article at the Guardian: that too much choice can be psychologically repellent. "Hell is 57 varieties": it should still be archived.
ellroon: People always talk about Government knowing too much about you. You know who knows even more? The Credit card companies! And as you mentioned, stores like Vons.
I resent having to put my information into a computer everytime I buy something that is on "sale" to Members only. I wish they would use that information for good use. When people keep running out of Rice milk for months at a time do you think that MAYBE they might consider increasing the supply of rice milk? No. They keep stocking three rows of milk that they eventully expire and have to be returned. They do this because of deal negotiated at higher corporate level. Responding to local stores needs and demands is a lower priority than big contracts cut with national suppliers.
Shelving fees is where the money is at. With out it they would really be in trouble.
Regarding caffine. I try to be "non-brand loyal" so that I don't pay too much for diet colas. What is interesting to me is the two many companies Coke and Pepsi never go on sale at the same time.
They have worked out a deal with safeway where only one is on sale at a time. Who is doing this, Safeway or the Pepsi and Coke suppliers. Does this count as collusion or is this all Safeway policy and they just tell Coke, we are going to offer you these weeks and Pepsi is going to get these other weeks.
They also have a Safeway brand diet-cola that tastes like chemicals and bubbly water. I drink that most of the time since it is the cheapest caffine delivery system. But the stockers only have one 12 pack of it out at a time. They have more, but they are kept in the back so as not to take up shelf space from Coke or Pepsi products.
TheaLogie
Thanks, I'll check it out! I'm sure that there is othing wrong with GMO corn and that the fine folks at Monsanto and other makers of GMO corn have provided all the approrite long term studies that have proved there are no effects.
And just to prove it they will donate the GMO corn to hungry countries and have them eat it for a few years so they can get some better data to prove that GMO corn is just fine. And if the prissy hunger organizations question this 'donation' of GMO corn they will be held up as obstructionist and cruel to deny food to the poor.
I'd like to say I admire the cruel logic and PR spin. But I don't.
Spocko --
If I didn't live on the complete other side of the continent from you, I'd offer to set up some sort of pickle trade route or something. Here in Soviet Canuckistan, we have a wealth of brands of dill pickles available in various different shapes, and I'm not sure I've yet seen a variety of dill pickles (at least) that contains corn syrup. I'm not sure about sweet pickles, because I don't eat them. (Anyway, I urge you to look around for Strub's brand pickles, as they're better than Vlasic any day of the week.)
I completely empathise with your plight, though, because I'm allergic (really, very allergic) to dairy products, and I've been through this whole process trying to get various and sundry manufacturers of things to make stuff that either does not contain modified milk ingredients, whey powder, or other superfluous milk-based fillers that serve no useful function in the product, except ensuring that everyone who is lactose intolerant or has a milk protein allergy (which is me on both counts) never buys their products. I find the worst offenders for this are potato chip and processed meat companies. (I can get kosher stuff, but it costs a lot more, is harder to find in my local area due to a paucity of kosher-keeping Jews hereabouts, and oftentimes doesn't taste as good, I think.)
Then again, I find the single brand monopolisation problem is far worse in the US than here in Canada, for whatever reason. The hypothesis making the rounds in my circle is that Americans just don't know how to eat, and/or don't insist on quality food, but it's hard to say. I know I look forward to grocery shopping in the US (which I do several times a year while travelling) with about the same enthusiasm as I usually reserve for dental surgery. Few of the brands are familiar, sticker shock is a huge issue, and a lot of things don't, I think, taste as good.
"pickle trade route" Interobang. See that is a GREAT phrase. Doesn't just saying make you smile.
Well said!
Americans just don't know how to eat, and/or don't insist on quality food
Don't I know it. I'm guilty of it at times too, but in the midwest it is tragic how many obese people are there. That whole issue could be a post in and of it self.
Thanks for stopping by. I'll have to look for that brand pickle.
Three words for you, Spocko: Less. Processed. Foods.
It's easy to bake your own bread, even without special bread appliances, food processors, an' whatnot. I like making spelt bread, m'self.
.
How do you spelt that?
Alright, I've had about enough of these comments! You guys are obviously junkies, and I'm going to TURN YOU IN!!
www.waronjunk.com/warning.htm
This reminds me... I need to get some food now. It's only 3:33 AM - and there are no classes tomorrow!
about the pickles - try Claussen - they're in the refridgerator section, contain no corn syrup, taste like pickles and are roundly delicious. they have lengthwise sliced sandwich slices, but they at least taste spectacular and don't interfere with your allergy.
Dear Anonomyous of 5:44. Thank you.
Now I'm curious What search did you do that got you here?
And finally are you know or have you ever been a pickle producer?
(I'm just wondering if the Clausen or the Vlasic people are scanning the blogs looking for negative brand comments. I know that I'm a hot bed of Vlasic dissatification.)
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