Question

Scenario

In many cases, food marketers don’t even try to sell products for the health-conscious in low-income neighborhoods. Businesses both big and small thus contribute to the cycle of poor nutrition in the inner city. A spokesperson for Kraft General Foods said, “We aren’t a miniature Health and Human Services Department. A company doesn’t have a social obligation to instruct consumers on the best way to handle their health.”

At the Friendly Pal supermarket in Brooklyn, the Continental Baking delivery person puts up lots of Wonder Bread and two small loaves of whole wheat and another two of light wheat. The salesperson says, “Whole wheat is for the old people, light wheat is for the skinny people, and all this white bread, it’s for the fat people.” In low-income Bedford Stuyvesant, only 25 of 149 small grocers carry low-fat milk. A store across the street from one of Chicago’s low-income housing projects offers only two cartons of low-fat milk and two cartons of skim. The store sells lots of Snickers, Coke, and Frito Lay products, beer, and cigarettes.

In Harlem, Little Debbie’s cupcakes sell like hotcakes. One Harlem storeowner tried stocking his store with fresh fruits and vegetables and Del Monte fruit in light syrup. His peaches, grapes, lettuce, and tomatoes were ignored. Now he sells just potatoes and bananas.

Although African Americans suffer more from hypertension, for which doctors prescribe low-salt diets, the Special Request line of low-sodium soups from Campbell is hard to find in the inner city where many African Americans live. Campbell soup says it is easier to fish where the fish are and doesn’t try to promote its more nutritious soup to inner-city people.

Many supermarket chains have abandoned inner cities and have left the market to smaller stores that charge between 10 and 20% more for the same food. This isn’t a rip-off of consumers as much as a passing on of higher costs. Smaller stores simply can’t buy at the same low prices as larger supermarkets can.

1. Major food companies and smaller grocery stores in the inner city are applying the marketing concept as they learned it. They are giving people what they want, as measured by store sales. They are not making much of an effort to encourage people to buy products that are more nutritious. Is this a problem as you see it?

2. Food costs more in the inner city than it does in the more affluent suburbs. Do marketers have any responsibility to change the situation? If not, does the government have any responsibility, or should people be free to buy, sell, and eat whatever they want at whatever cost, with no interference from the outside?

3. Poor health costs all of us in higher medical bills and lower productivity of the workforce. If major food companies will not promote nutrition to poor people, should that function be taken over by nonprofit organizations such as churches, schools, and the government? What would you recommend?

4. Would you try to do anything different if you were a grocery store owner? What would motivate you to try to sell items that are more nutritious?

Answer 1