I Can't Afford Peaches

Friday, February 11, 2011 10:24 Posted by leosaumure
You know those numbered stickers that you see on fruit?  The ones that tell the cashier which code to punch into the register?  They've started advertising on them now! The attached image is a sticker advertising the new Yogi Bear movie.

Advertisers are no longer content getting their message to kids through sugary cereals like you'd see on a box of Caffeinated-adrenalin-laced-chocolate-covered-sugar-bombs.  Now advertisers are seeing a trend towards parents giving their kids actual healthy food, hence the expanded advertising market.

My problem with this isn't so much the advertising to a consumer.  My issue is that this advertising represents a windfall of profits to the fruit companies, that does not get passed on to the consumer.  Another example of industry reaping the rewards of advertising while the consumer continually gets shafted is advertising in movie theatres.  Think about going to a movie and watching the 20 minutes (exagerated...but not much) of commercials before the movie.  Now, think about how much the theatre gets for those ads, and think about how much you paid for your movie ticket.  I can pretty much guess that you're not getting a break on your ticket price.

Going back to my earlier complaint about advertising on fruit, I wanted to say that healthy eating isn't cheap. Due to the heavily subsidized food industry, as well as economies of scale, it is much cheaper to purchase a highly processed (and dubiously nutritious) packaged meal than it is to purchase the raw materials to make your own meals.  And as government has proven in the past, you're not going to see many policies that make it easier to buy healthy food; like a sin tax that directly funds healthy alternatives (a Snickers Tax for instance).

Because it is so expensive to purchase fruit and veggies, I have no issue with industry getting extra money through advertising.  That being said however, I think the industry should pass some of that windfall onto the consumer.  Let's not allow healthy eating only accessible to the rich.

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