Sunday, 20 May 2007

Life on Mars


Masterfoods has caved in after less than a week of relatively mild pressure from the Vegetarian lobby and reversed its plan to use a taboo non-vegetarian ingredient in its Mars bars.

In a beautiful example of Newspeak, Masterfoods called this spineless surrender a "principled decision.'

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait. I usually agree with you, but this time you're acting a tad silly. They were vegetarian before, and the only reason they changed to animal rennet was to make it cheaper to produce.

You seem to be bemoaning the fact that the consumers could change the decisions of the manufacturers, which is a bit odd. You'd prefer that companies didn't listen to their customers? (I'm not a vegetarian, and yes, making pokes at vegetarians can be funny. But this is a good thing, surely?)

David said...

Good point, Wunderbear, and ones that occurred to me to. I'm a firm believer in the market and the right of private companies to do as they wish within the law, but what raised my hackles on this one was how Masterfoods gave into a tiny pressure group and spun this not as "we give our customers what they want," which is legitimate, but rather as a "principled stand," which is exactly the opposite of what it is.

One of the perils of going for too much pith.

Anonymous said...

Oh, so they didn't present it as pressure from customers, but rather on "principle"? In that case, then I can see your point. Thanks for responding!

*shakes fist at Masterfood*