Taste and the Profit Motive
Tom Bulford - Thu 08 May, 2008
Food choices have expanded enormously in recent decades and there are some interesting investment opportunities to profit from it.
The other day I was listening to a radio phone-in on Radio Oxford. As usual, most of the callers did not seem to have much to say, but were just pleased to be having a chat with somebody. I think these shows provide a social service for lonely people as much as anything else.
Anyway an old lady came on to tell the presenter how she had spent the previous evening. ‘It was my daughter’s birthday, Bill,’ she divulged. ‘So we went out for a Chinese.’
‘Oh really,’ said Bill, managing to sound interested. ‘And what did you have?’ ‘Well, Bill’ said the old dear. ‘I had sweet and sour. And my daughter had fried rice… and chips.’
Well, when it comes to trying dodgy foreign foods we are only prepared to go so far, do you not agree? Or perhaps this was an example of what chefs like to call ‘fusion’ between eastern and western tastes. And why not? If you like it and it won’t kill you, then go for it!
Anyway, the food and drinks industry is constantly trying to educate our taste buds to try things that we have never had before, and very successful it has been, too. My children can hardly believe that pizzas were simply not available in England when I was their age.
I remember my parents returning from lunch with friends to report that they had been given chicken casserole…with rice! Rice! Very exotic! My father was not impressed. It was probably the first time he had ever had lunch without eating potato.
What used to be a slow chiselling away of our traditional diet has become a flood. It seems extraordinary these days that a grocer’s shop was once no bigger than a shoe shop or a florists. What they used to stock would hardly fill one shelf in today’s vast supermarkets. Some people have complained that supermarkets offer just too much choice. I cannot really agree with that, but still sometimes the array is quite overwhelming.
Conspiring together to confront us with this vast array have been a few discernible trends. One of these is the introduction of foreign foods, and another has been convenience foods.
When I was a child I remember my mother being slightly contemptuous of people who bought cakes, rather than baking these themselves. And I also remember receiving the impression that a ‘cut loaf’ rather than one that my father carved with great ceremony on the kitchen table was somehow ‘common’.
But now that you can buy ready-mashed potato it seems that the slightest thing is too much trouble for today’s busy housewife, and for all the efforts of Jamie, Nigella and Delia the art of preparing family meals each day is dying out.
One man who has managed to combine both our interest in foreign food with our reluctance to do anything more than open a packet and turn on the microwave is ‘curry king’ Sir Gulam Noon, who has made a fortune from supplying prepared Indian and Asian meals to the supermarkets.
I will be writing soon in this column about an interesting small company in which he is a major investor. Partly in a reaction to fast food restaurants and factory-prepared meals the organic food movement is really on the march, while new terms such as ‘functional foods’ and ‘neutraceuticals’ have been coined to give us the illusion that we can somehow eat our way to health.
Finally we must now eat and drink with a social conscience. Green & Black chocolate is an example of how clever marketing can appeal to our better nature, but it is by no means unique. Here for example is what I read on a Starbuck’s coffee mug. ‘Starbucks is committed to reducing environmental impact through increased use of post-consumer recycled materials. Help us help the planet.’
Yes, drink Starbuck’s coffee and save the planet! If only it was so easy. And, printed upon that very same Starbuck’s mug, here are some yucky words of the blatantly obvious masquerading as wisdom from chef and restaurant owner Marcus Samuelson.
‘Taste is subjective. Taste is democratic. Taste is powerful. Taste - the combination of texture, aroma, temperature, aesthetic and environment – is also a window into someone else’s life or culture. Be confident in your taste, but remain curious and expose yourself to new tastes. Allow your taste to constantly evolve and grow – while keeping and cherishing the memories that taste creates.’
Me, I am a Cornish pasty and mug of tea man. But others are prepared to be a bit more adventurous. And there are enough adventurous taste buds to make for some exciting business opportunities. Readers of the latest Red Hot Penny Shares will find two small companies I’ve unearthed recently that have serious profit potential for investors.
Until next time,
Tom Bulford
for The Daily Reckoning
