Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

THE FOOD INDUSTRY ADAPTS 133
how to use Crisco. The hydrogenation technology led to
the development of margarine products, which were marketed
as alternatives to butter and vegetable shortenings and which
increasingly replaced animal fat in cooking. Because trans fat
was an effective preservative and enhanced taste and texture,
it was a welcome alternative for both processed - food and fast -
food fi rms, who in the 1980s needed to deal with the purported
harmful effects of saturated fat.
Trans fat was considered safe until 1990, even though
evidence to the contrary was starting to emerge before then.
By the mid - 1990s, scientific evidence showed that trans
fat had a deleterious effect on both good and bad cholesterol
levels. The government passed a law in 2002 requiring
companies to label the trans fat in food by 2005. Denmark
in 2002 effectively banned the use of trans fat in food, and in
2006, after an unsuccessful public campaign to reduce consumption
of trans fat, the New York City Board of Health
voted to ban trans fat in restaurant food. Companies scrambled
to remove trans fat from their products. It proved
difficult but not impossible. Even Crisco, now owned by
the J. M. Smucker company, got rid of trans fat in 2002. In
2009 an Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to
Children, representing the FDA and three other agencies,
specified a standard for children of less than 1 gram of saturated
fat and 0 grams of trans fat per serving.
Clearly the government has been highly infl uential in, if not
a determinant of, the role of fat in a megatrend in food, namely
healthy eating. If a fi rm is to be a trend driver in this context, it
is necessary to anticipate government legislative and regulatory
responses to issues and to infl uence them whenever possible by
contributing scientifi c studies. Couple the ambiguity and complexity
of the science of health with the political winds, and it is
diffi cult and sometimes risky to become a trend driver. However,
the fi rst - mover advantages, especially with respect to brand
equity, can be signifi cant.