Keep Your Eye on the Fruit

Hey, it's breakfast time. Are you hungry? Would you like some waffles? Well, both of these choices by Van's are wheat, gluten, dairy, and egg-free, are made with whole grain, and are sweetened with fruit juice, so it will be a tough choice.

What it comes down to is, do you want the blueberry or the strawberry?

TRICK QUESTION--the one the right is not strawberry! There isn't any strawberry juice injected into that waffle at all--it is only sweetened with pineapple, peach, and pear juices! Unless you want to cut up the strawberries out of the cardboard packaging, you won't be eating any red fruits with your waffles this morning. The waffles in the blueberry box has all those juices too, but actually does contain dried blueberries as well as blackberries.

I still buy a variety of Van's waffles anyway because there's no dairy in them (and they're often on sale) but their boxes can be tricky. There are many different flavors of waffles but none of the boxes with red banners have a strawberry in them. In fact, all of the red banner boxes have a non-fruit word associated with them: either "totally natural" or "homestyle." Yet each one of those boxes has a picture of a red fruit on it.

So which came first--the picture or the egg? Wait, there's no egg. Which came first--the picture or banner? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because they seem like a cool company and guess that they just chose a banner color that matched something in the picture, and having the strawberries there was poetic licence. But with all the varieties they have that actually do contain ingredients that match the banner color (flax is gold, apple cinnamon is dark red, chocolate chip is brown), it probably would have been more appropriate to select a neutral color for the ones that don't.

Now here's the real kick in the pants--the "Berry" box labelled with the purple banner contains the same berries that the "Blueberry" one does (dried blueberries and blackberries). No peach, pineapple, or pear juice, but definitely no raspberries as pictured.

And none of these waffles even taste remotely like sneakers!

Frosted Fakes?

Several Kellogg's cereals were on sale the other day so I picked up a box of Frosted Flakes. Later on in my shopping adventure, I spotted this on the shelf in the "Ethnic Food" aisle:

Another box of Frosted Flakes, but this one by Pampa instead of Kellogg's. It was a similar blue box with some flakes, a splash of milk, mysterious red fruit, and a totally extreme cartoon mascot. I never heard of this company before and thought it was odd to not find the box among the usual generic brands in the Cereal Aisle. Maybe they banished Pampa Frosted Flakes to another aisle as punishment for stealing a trademarked name?

Well, as it turns out, "Frosted Flakes" is not a trademarkable term, at least according to Wikipedia. There's no specific source attributed to that claim, but a quick search of US Trademarks shows that "Kellogg's Frosted Flakes" and "Kellogg's Frosted Flakes Gold" (and formerly, "Kellogg's Cocoa Frosted Flakes") are all owned by The Kellogg Company, but "Frosted Flakes" can not be held exclusive to describe a cereal-derived food product. Records also show that Post once had their own trademarked Frosted Flakes ("Post Toasties Frosted Flakes") and Ralcorp had "Chocolatious Frosted Flakes" but these have since lapsed in registration. I guess every other company just figured "Who cares about the beginning? We already don't need to pay for the 'Frosted Flakes' part!" and ran with it.

It's sort of unfortunate for Kellogg's because the term "Frosted Flakes" is probably the most important and recognizable part of the phrase to consumers. "Kellogg's," ubiquitous in their packaging, slogans, and advertising, is usually ignored. They probably should have come up with a more original, trademarkable name (Tony the Tigerflakes?) in the first place, but to make up for their mistake, they've secured their trademark on the term "Frosted Flakes" for every inedible item on the planet: dishware, sneakers, shirts, hats, underwear, gloves, puzzles, toy cars, and measuring cups, among other things. This means you'll never see Pampa's little hoverboarder on a T-shirt next to the words "Frosted Flakes." They aren't lying when they say "pay only for taste" because it's legally all they'll be able to sell you.

As you can see, Pampa (owned by Transnational Foods) takes advantage of this little trademark loophole with their "Raisin Bran" cereal as well. "Corn Flakes" get the Pampa treatment too. From there, their naming strategy is all over the place:

They have a cereal called "Cocoa Drops." This name seems to mimic the foreign version of Kellogg's "Cocoa Krispies" known as "Coco Pops," but doesn't resemble the cereal other than in color. "Cocoa Drops" looks and probably tastes more like General Mills' "Cocoa Puffs." "Coco Puffs," as it's known throughout the world, is trademarked in the US while "Coco Pops" is not. Pampa could have legally used the "Coco Pops" named for their cereal in the US. A more accurate name with worldwide appeal would have parodied "Cocoa Puffs" though. "Choco Puffs" perhaps?

Then they've got "Fruitty Wheels" which is a knockoff of Kellogg's "Froot Loops." "Fruit Wheels" cereal is already trademarked by the grocery store Winn-Dixie, though I'm not seeing any obvious evidence of them using it on a cereal box. Oddly, I've been able to track down a "Fruit Discs" cereal sold by WD, but that name isn't trademarked at all. So the question is, why did Pampa choose "Fruitty Wheels"? "Fruitty" isn't even an English word (then again, neither is "Froot") and I don't see any trademark for "Fruity Wheels." Maybe they're trying to distance themselves from a possible suit for misrepresenting fruit content and intentionally spelling the word incorrectly. That didn't seem to work for Kellogg's though.

Finally, there is "Honey Rings." There are already a thousand different cereals called "Honey Rings" because it's not trademarked. I don't even know what this is a knockoff of, to be honest. I know this guy's not a fan. It seems Pampa is just going with the flow here.

Most interesting to me about the Pampa cereals is that all the boxes use the exact same milk splash into the bowl. The Raisin Bran artwork omits one little milk dot that should appear over the top "N." Honey Rings omits the entire milk pour which makes you wonder what the hell is splashing. The Corn Flakes box doesn't feature the Marty McFly-lookin' kid, but that doesn't mean it's sugar-free.

Where'd he go anyway? COME BACK SWEET PRINCE!

NJ, NO? OH, OHIO.

STRAIGHT FROM THE JERSEY SHORE...

...OF THAILAND...

BY WAY OF OHIO?

If this doesn't look fishy to you, then you're not from the Jersey Shore. This sardine can I found for sale at Duane Reade prominently features/exploits a famous New Jersey Shore site--the Barnegat Lighthouse. This towering icon overlooks the Barnegat Inlet, which links the Atlantic Ocean to the Barnegat Bay.

Another imposing phallic symbol of the Barnegat Bay, one that claims the Western horizon, is the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station. I assume Ohio and Thailand do not dispatch their sardine fleets to NJ, but I always remember seeing dozens of fisherman camped out on small Rt. 9 bridge over an estuary that leads to the OC, the oldest active power plant in the US. This always seemed insane to me (three-eyed fish, y'know?), but maybe they were on to something... 

So, if you ever see this for sale (it's probably easiest to find inside this 25-mile radius), pick it up with pride:

Fiber Plus One = Jerk

Almost a year to the date after The Great Smart Pop/Smart Balance Hullabaloo of 2011, I've discovered the next great grocery store non-controversy from Kellogg's Department of Uncreativity*.

Hey, I got an idea. I want to make a tasty bar with fiber in it, but with chocolate or something sweet on top to get people to eat it! And I'll put like, I don't know, 35% of a person's daily value of fiber in it and then circle it to draw real attention to it! And then I'll take a picture of it, pull it halfway apart so you can see the strings of moist, juicy goodness** and put that on the box! Hmm, what will I call it? I don't know... Fiber-something! It doesn't matter as long as it's one syllable and tricks people into thinking they're buying a Fiber One bar***! I'LL BE RICH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Signed,

The Ghost of W.K. Kellogg




* Unlike the popcorn entry, the boxes' adjacency is not staged for the photo.

**

*** Note that at the right edge of the first photo, a box of Fiber Max bars is lurking. This is a generic America's Choice brand bar and is therefore exempt from my criticism.

Pop Balance

I think it's cute when generic products ape the name of mainstream products at grocery stores (Mountain Weg--Wegmans' version of Mountain Dew--is my personal favorite). Sure, it's probably closer to copyright infringment than it is to parody but I excuse it because it's almost a mockery of the obscene amount of money and time their popular counterparts spend on brainstorming sessions and focus groups just to come up with the name of spinoff products and flavors. In the end, they're often selling the product's image instead of its quality which is lame. Generics have no interest in the image or the quality which is so lame that it's cool!

If you followed that logic, then stick with me for this one. When mainstream products use tons of resources to research product names and decide that TOTALLY RIPPING OFF OTHER PEOPLE is the most effective recourse, like The Ghost of Orville Redenbacher did here...

...then it's Super Lame! Smart Pop? Really? "Smart" is the word you felt would make your product appear unique on the shelf amongst all the other low calorie popcorns*? Or are you really just trying to trick people into either accidentally picking up your box thinking it's someone else's or allowing "smart" to become a valid popcorn-related marketing buzzword. Nice fucking wavy green banner too, assholes. Oh wait, Orville's's** is totally different--it curls down at the end while Smart Balance's curls up.

You know, I go to the grocery store to calm down after a shitty day working at a shitty megacorporation and this is what I'm confronted with.

I'm going to go scream now.

*Please note that Pop Smart and Smart Balance were not directly next to each other on the shelf and this photo is just a manipulative dramatization like they do on the tee vee.

** Totally valid contraction, just look at photo example on Wikipedia***

*** JOKES ON YOU ORVILLE, I TOTALLY DID THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeepers Creepers

Who will be the first parent to see if this stroller can actually handle snowy downhill mountain terrain?

 I actually love the packaging because it's so completely ridiculous. Here are some of Jeep's rejected box images:

The Jambalaya Monolith

Look at this fucking Jambalaya:

 

The message I get from the packaging is:

 "Jambalaya Mix - 25% less sodium than our original Jamabalaya Mix, but still 15% more than the leading Rice Mix product!"

I know the "15% MORE" actually refers to how much rice is in the box, compared to another brand (a footnote way at the bottom of the backside), but I think it's still a poor design choice. My brain instinctively links the two blue banners together, so I naturally consider the two messages related. I also fixate on numbers when grocery shopping, so I scrutinize any random percentage thrown on the front of a box. I think they could have avoided the perceived conflict by adding the word "RICE" after the word "MORE." Or even an arrow from the "15% MORE!" pointing to the "8 OZ." below it. I admit, the box sucked me in with the "Reduced Sodium" claim, but the other confusing message gave me pause.

But who am I kidding? With that tasty looking picture, it could have said 15% MORE COCKROACH PUBES! and I still would've bought it.