Food oligopolies enter "salad" market
In the health-conscious world of consumer nutrition, salad is good, prepared meats are bad. That might be bad news for companies like Kraft Foods and Sara Lee that are big in the luncheon meats business.
But in the deeper working of the American consumers mind, salad= boring and a chore. Fortunately, supermarkets are now filled with bagged salads, of dubious nutritional value but easy to prepare (just empty the bag and pour on dressing). But the other aspect of boring is the taste - so salad-y.
SO brilliant idea: the food giants have some up with ready "salads" that are mostly prepared meat (and in Kraft's case, cheese and (Planters) nuts. That's according to a Wall Street Journal story ("New Leaf for Sara Lee, Kraft: Salads", 3/26/07), which tells us of the rollout of "Kraft's Fresh Creations salads, which include lettuce along with Oscar Mayer meat, Planters nuts and Kraft cheese and salad dressing." There are also ready-made South Beach Diet-brand meat/salad kits. For Sara Lee, it's "Hillshire Farm Salad Entrees, kits that contain meat and other ingredients for making a salad, except lettuce."
Of course, this all a bit like McDonalds selling "healthy food" salads that have more fat and calories than their Quarter Pounders, and it illustrates the schizophrenia between health-obsession and juvenile pigging out that is the reality of the American diet. It's in the same league as sugar-laden "health drinks" and "100-calorie" packages of junk food.
For the food giants, it's an extension out of mature and competitive markets like luncheon meats into the fastest growing grocery segments, ready-to-eat meals and "healthy" foods. It notable that the two companies have come up with the same idea at once--more evidence of the convergence of thinking in the big competitors. What is scary is these big companies have the power to redefine in concept of salad from essentially vegetables to essentially meat. The head of lettuce may be on the way out.
10:16:09 PM 
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