Dive Brief:
- Food and beverage companies have taken to removing ingredients that consumers worry are unhealthy — or just plain weird.
- The trend comes in response to the perceived threat of social media. Manufacturers have learned — often the hard way — that when consumers become angry or concerned about a food, the damage to a brand can be rapid and extensive.
- Among the ingredient removals worth noting: Gatorade dropped brominated vegetable oil, Starbucks stopped using a red dye made from crushed insects, Kraft backed away from the bright yellow coloring in its macaroni and cheese, Chick-fil-A is removing dyes and high-fructose corn syrup from its dressings, and Kroger banned high-fructose corn syrup from its store-brand cereals.
Dive Insight:
God bless the Internet. Those of us who are old enough to remember life before the Web know that consumers were once a particularly powerless bunch. If, for example, you had learned in 1972 that your food was made with insect blood, genetically modified commodity crops, carcinogenic colorings, and enough sugar and salt to kill a rhinoceroses, you could complain about it to your family — or your Congressman. Today you can complain about it to everyone. And that is progress.