Moms have always known that kids are looking for something
different to eat. Now the food industry is catching on, moving
at a fast pace toward the kid market.
Purple and green ketchup, blue and pink butter, cookies and
snacks that change colors in your mouth or your milk — these
are just a few examples of the latest color craze.
Why market to children when parents are the ones doing the
shopping
and holding the purse strings?
“When my kids begged for green ketchup, I totally refused
when I saw the higher price tag,” said Sharon Omahen, a
Jackson,
Ga., mother of two. “I told them they could buy it with
their
own money, and they did!”
Once she realized how eager her children were to get the
ketchup,
she was able to use it to her advantage.
“I’ve used the purple ketchup as a treat to reward them
for good behavior, and I’ve also bought the pink butter,”
Omahen said. “Actually, I just bought the butter because
it has a flip-top and easy dispenser. But my younger daughter
was thrilled. Now she makes pink faces and designs on her morning
waffles.”
Can You Taste
Color?
The ketchup’s zany colors may entice children, but many adults
pass it by because of the altered taste they associate with the
color.
Just because her kids eat it doesn’t mean Omahen does.
“They
always beg their Dad and me to try it, and I finally did,”
she said. “I know mentally that it’s just ketchup, but the
green color makes it taste awful to me. My husband won’t even
try it.”
University of Georgia food science professor Rob Shewfelt
assures
wary customers that “flavors are colorless, and colors are
flavorless.”
A food scientist with the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental
Sciences, Shewfelt has studied food colorings and how they relate
to consumer acceptance of new food products.
While a few drops of food coloring won’t change the actual
flavor of the products, Shewfelt says, “color does influence
our perception of flavor.” Because people associate color
with different tastes, changing the typical color leads them to
think the flavor has changed.
Mystery E-Z
Sqeeze
Heinz, developers of the odd-colored ketchups, originally
decided
to offer purple ketchup when the Harry Potter books became
popular.
“Boys and girls alike love the cool purple color,”
said Brian Hansberry, vice president of marketing for ketchup,
condiments and sauces at Heinz North America.
Heinz introduced the mystery “EZ Squirt” ketchup
this year in three more colors: pink, orange and teal. A
deceptive
bottle keeps the ketchup color a secret.
Shewfelt said children and adults react differently to these
new “crazy-colored” products.
“Adults ask ‘Why?’ and kids usually just say ‘Because
it’s cool!’” Shewfelt said. “The answer to
‘Why?’
is because so many of us, myself included, do think it’s so
‘Cool’!”
