FSA to debate food promotion to kids

The British Food Standards Agency is to invite public debate on 27 January on food promotion to children and the effect it has on poor diets and rising levels of childhood obesity. 

The ticket-only debate, chaired by broadcaster Jeremy Vine, will take place in London at the QE2 Conference Centre, Westminster, from 18.30 to 20.30. It will also be televised on Sky and webcast.

The debate is a follow-up to the FSA’s report, Does Food Promotion Influence Children? published last September, which found that promotions do affect their food choices and behaviour, and subsequent policy options paper.

Panellists include Kierra Box, student and youth activist; Andrew Brown, director general of the Advertising Association; Dr Susan Jebb, head of nutrition and health research at the Medical Research Council; Richard Reeves, business writer and consultant, and celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson.

FSA chairman Sir John Krebs said “We already know that many children's diets contain too much fat, sugar and salt. We know that obesity in children could cost £3.6bn a year by 2010 and ruin the health of thousands of people and their families.”

New software shrinks Pringle product cycle
Neuroeconomics – the latest brainwave?
Interbrew confirms interest in Korea
Drugs packaging to show healthy growth

PLM

New software shrinks Pringle product cycle

Scottish knitwear maker Pringle is to use Freeborders’ product development sofotware to speed up and improve its products’ life cycle.

Pringle, which popularised Argyle-pattern cashmere jerseys, is currently enjoying a sales renaissance similar to that of Burberry.

Pringle hopes to shorten product development by sharing accurate and instant product information with its supply chain partners worldwide. Other Freeborders users include Saks, DuPont, Gap, J. Crew, Marc Jacobs and Liz Claiborne. 

Marketing

Neuroeconomics – the latest brainwave?

Smart marketers are starting to use brain-scanning technology to assess and improve marketing messages before spending millions on campaigns.

The move follows better understanding of how and where neurones in the brain fire when stimulated by different sources, and how memory is encoded. The new field is called neuroeconomics.

The brain-scanning technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or positron emission topography (PET) measures neurological reaction to stimuli such as product photos or advertising messages. This makes it possible for the first time to measure consumer responses precisely and unequivocally.

The ideal is to stimulate the neurones in the top of the brain. Firing up the right side of the brain means a positive reaction to the product. But sparking neurones in the top of the brain means the consumer has already decided, linked the product with their self-image and is ready to buy. Further, that product preference becomes embedded in memory.

The work follows experiments in the 1980s that showed that non-physical attributes and associations such as images could override physical stimuli such as taste. They stimulated the top of the brain while blind tastings sparked the right side of the brain.

Researchers suggest that although consumers as a whole will behave rationally, at an individual level emotional associations are vital in triggering buying decisions. Thus products and messages that stimulate the top of the brain are more likely to do well in the market.

M&A

Interbrew confirms interest in Korea

Belgium-based brewer Interbrew, has exercised a put option and paid 612 million euro for 100% control of South Korea’s Hops Cooperatieve U.A. ("Hops"). Hops holds 45% of the shares of Oriental Brewery. The firm says the deal will have no impact on Interbrew's.

Packaging

Drugs packaging to show healthy growth

World pharmaceutical packaging demand will increase 4.3% a year to $22.2bn in 2007. Nearly 80% of demand will come from the eight largest drug-producing countries: the US, Japan, China, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Switzerland, says a new study from market researcher Freedonia.

China will grow fastest due to rapidly expanding manufacturing capabilities and a government program to upgrade locally-made medicines.

The US will remain the largest consumer. Innovation in drug-making will drive similar advances in packaging here. But upgraded government standards requiring unit dose packaging will drive the West European market. Government pressure on prices will dampen gains in Japan.

Blister packaging will generate the best worldwide growth. Demand should grow 6.6% a year to $4.9bn in 2007. A combination of functional versatility and government regulation will underpin demand.

Source: Freedonia 2004