In a video against animal cruelty, a woman talks about the tricks food industry has been using for decades. One subject in particular intriges me.
In the 1950s there was a very important innovation in food, the instant mix cake. One of my personal favourites. When they were first brought out all you needed to do was to add a little bit of water, who's not going to love that? Well actually no one loved it, no one bought the bloody things. So they did a bit of research and what they found was that the main consumer, the target consumer, the housewife, felt that it was cheating. They didn't want to pass off such an easy thing as their own baking to their partners, their husbands, their families, whatever. So what did the producers have to do? They had to make it harder, so now you had to add water and an egg. And sales eggsploded!
(at 1:00 in the video)
Is there any evidence to support these claims?
- Food industry made it harder to cook these instant cakes.
- People were ashamed to trick their guests.
- Once they made it harder to cook, sales exploded.