Foodwashing Makes for Good Corporate Marketing

Folks, sustainable food has arrived.

The same way you knew a head of steam was building on environmental concerns when corporations started greenwashing as a way to win customers' approval, you now know that sustainable food has hit the big time: Corporations that aren't exactly known for their commitment to the good health of our food and our bodies are starting to cozy up to local and sustainable food trends.

Let's call it "foodwashing."

Exhibit A: The other day, I heard a radio ad for Coke which equated the contoured two-liter bottle that the company has been promoting with family dinner. The gist: The easier it is to pour, the more Coke you can share, and the more you want to share, the more motivated you are to all sit down to dinner together. In short: Coke is an inspiration for the return of family dinner.

I couldn't decide whether to be happy that family dinner has become an appealing mainstream idea again or to be angry that a corporate giant whose products play a key role in our country's ill-health is trying to co-opt what should be a healthy eating tradition (in my day, it was milk, not soda). That's foodwashing!

Exhibit B: Triscuit has teamed up with Urban Farming to promote the idea of home farming — growing vegetables and herbs at home regardless of what kind of home you've got. A press release announced the launch of a "Home Farming movement" that will involve the creation of 50 community-based home farms around the U.S. this year.

While I by no means want to suggest that the excellent organization Urban Farming is participating in a corporate-front campaign or that promoting home farming is not a laudable goal, I do raise my eyebrows at the fact that a maker of salty crackers — though admittedly the original variety are made with a refreshingly simple list of three ingredients, including whole wheat — is concocting a healthy-local-food "movement" out of whole cloth. A movement? I think not. A campaign is more like it. Just a little bit of foodwashing to soften the edges of Triscuit's salty snack identity.

Exhibit C: In a campaign last year, Frito-Lay claimed its potato chips sold in certain areas to be "local" food. The New York Times reported that "Frito-Lay is one of several big companies that, along with some large-scale farming concerns, are embracing a broad interpretation of what eating locally means." This trend, the article jokingly states, "has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate."

Can you think of any other instances of foodwashing? And where is the line between jumping-on-the-bandwagon marketing ploys and real cooperate concern and cooperation?

Photo: azrainman via Flickr