Food branding secrets exposed
A new study by Which? reveals the flavouring and location tricks used to entice us to buy food
A report by consumer champion Which? has exposed the branding tricks used by both supermarkets and food manufacturers to entice us to buy their products.
It found that some flavoured products contain little or no trace of the actual ingredients except in the flavouring. For example, Quaker Oats’ raspberry and pomegranate-flavoured Oat So Simple is just that – flavouring. Homepride’s beef in ale sauce contains no beef stock and only 4% ale, while there is only 0.6% of dried wild mushrooms in Covent Garden wild mushroom soup. Farm fresh eggs may have come from battery chickens.
It also exposes the fictional places created to give products a sense of authenticity or provenance. For example, Marks & Spencer sells salmon from Lochmuir, but there’s no such place. “The name is a collective way of representing farms across Scottish regions,” said an M&S spokesperson. There are no rules against inventing a location for food branding.
It was also revealed that Tesco’s Willow Farm and M&S’s Oakham chickens come from farms around the country, not just the locations on their packaging.
Which? also highlighted the use of emotive language such as ‘rich’, ‘succulent’ and ‘hearty’ on packaging.
A previous study by Which? found that half of us now look at the origin of the food we buy, with that number increasing to close to three-quarters when it comes to buying meat and dairy.
Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: ‘The food industry must do more to make sure people get what they think they're paying for.’
What do you think of this report’s findings? Are you influenced by branding when you’re buying or does it come down to factors such as taste and price? Let us know in the Comments section below.
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