Dive Brief:
- Powerade says it will stop using brominated vegetable oil as an ingredient.
- The move comes after a petition by a Mississippi teenager on Change.org blasted the company for using the oil, which is banned for human consumption in some countries.
- PepsiCo removed the ingredient from rival Gatorade last year after a petition by the same teen, Sarah Kavanagh.
Dive Insight:
This is a new era in which consumers, not companies, wield the most power. And food manufacturers and marketers ignore that at their own peril.
Sarah Kavanagh isn't a lone, unhappy consumer. She's a connected and savvy user of social media -- just like the folks who pushed Kraft to dump its food coloring, pushed Subway to drop the "yoga mat" chemical, and convinced Kellogg to change its palm oil sourcing.
Not only have these "e-vangelists" become among the most influential forces in the food industry, they are the power behind almost everything fascinating in food today.