Despite Ambiguities, Ride The Health Marketing Tide

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

Professor Stanton’s article is exceptionally useful for the produce industry because of so many firms and promotional organizations, and even the industry as a whole, default to health promotion without much evidence that this is particularly effective.

Even here, though, there is ambiguity between the impact of “news” regarding the healthful nature of a particular item and the promotion of that news. In other words, around the year 2000, blueberries may have been identified as a “superfood” and the blueberry industry may have promoted that fact and consumption of blueberries may have zoomed. But we don’t know to what extent industry or corporate efforts caused that boom, as opposed to the general dissemination of information through media, schools, etc.

We also don’t have very good information of the way the core characteristics of the product influence the way consumers react to health news. Blueberries are tasty, can be eaten raw and can easily replace other fruits, so one can increase one’s consumption simply by putting blueberries on a cheesecake rather than strawberries.

It is also notable that we are not certain that the very kinds of promotion that might work for individual shippers of a specific commodity will also work for the overall produce industry — after all, a blueberry shipper need only take business from another blueberry shipper, and the blueberry industry need only take business from other berries. For the overall produce industry to increase consumption, it has to take business from the chip industry or the cookie industry or some other non-produce food.

This speaks to another concern, as we don’t know the degree of passion such health reports create among consumers. Even a tepid observer of the news might hear something good about blueberries and toss them in the cart rather than another fruit. Getting them to reduce ice cream consumption so consumers can eat more blueberries is another matter entirely.

Of course, all this speaks to consumption, and the interaction of health news and produce consumption can also be complex.

If some good news comes out about the health benefit of eating pears, the one thing we know is that pear consumption in the world will not increase much this year or next or the year after. It can’t because pear trees take years to produce fruit.

Possibly, if the good news drives up demand and the supply is fixed, prices may rise and so Dr. Stanton’s question — will producers “make more money”? — would be answered in the affirmative.

Yet the flip side of this phenomenon also indicates that with certain crops, one could see a significant increase in consumption and no increase in profitability for individual players. Imagine a grower of a row crop with low barriers to entry. If this grower has a fixed acreage and all the increase in demand created by some positive health news is satisfied by new growers, then our original fixed quantity grower benefits not at all from increased demand.

So Professor Stanton’s question about the producer making more money may then be answered negatively.

One other issue that may impact the way nutrition claims work is whether the claims happen to be true. Lots of claims are made and are even supported by individual studies. These studies, though, are often quite small and don’t have the rigor to actually establish a sustained health benefit. Sometimes, even when a health benefit is established, in can be inconsequential. For example, studies may prove a particular item to be an excellent source of some nutrient that is plentiful and so few people need more of this particular nutrient.

Another issue is whether health marketing, even if effective, is actually the most effective way to spend money in the promotion of fresh produce. In other words, maybe the industry should just do a little PR on the health claims and put its money into promoting the decadence and sinful luxury of berries with ice cream and chocolate.

Much of the data in Professor Stanton’s article speaks to issues such as how health-related news can lead to new product introductions. But not all, or even most, of these new products are likely to be fresh. In the produce industry, this is a key issue because very often, the product for processing is a totally different industry. So doubling apple juice consumption may mostly help the Chinese apple producers. A sudden surge in frozen broccoli sales won’t help the companies that grow and a market for the fresh industry.

There is probably a real dilemma in marketing produce in terms of health claims. The claims most likely to boost consumption are A) Highly specific and B) Apply to the sweet fruit.

The problem is also two-fold: A) The strongest science applies to the general proposition that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can help people fight obesity, etc., and B) The items most likely to provide great benefit are rather bitter vegetables, not sweet fruit.

Professor Stanton gives us a worthwhile analysis because he tells it straight. Regardless of the certainty of any health benefit, there is a marketing tide, and one should try to ride it while one can.