4 ms·
I thought the same thing about yogurt. The flavored ones have a lot of sugar and people I know say they want a less sweet version. Then last week I met a man i
by jzwinck 11y ago
I thought the same thing about yogurt. The flavored ones have a lot of sugar and people I know say they want a less sweet version.
Then last week I met a man in the supermarket. We were both staring at various yogurts. I was comparison shopping; he was "spying" on the competition and the store. You see, he worked for a yogurt maker.
He asked me what I considered important and I asked him about reduced sugar variants. He said this topic came up over and over in market research. Customers demand reduced sugar. But when they do taste testing, most of those customers choose a product with mainstream sweetness. They want the idea of less sugar. But their tastebuds are not prepared for it.
- DannoHung 11y agoYeah. It's because we've been given sugary shit en masse for decades. It's like asking someone addicted to heroin if they would like to stop doing heroin. Anyway, the rise of Greek yogurt at least shows that this isn't 100% true. It does need a little sugar for me to find it palatable as breakfast, but like, we're talking 2 or 3 sliced strawberries or a handful of blueberries.
- wang_li 11y ago>It's because we've been given sugary shit en masse for decades. For weeks. It only takes a few weeks for your sense of taste to adjust to a change in diet.
- PepeGomez 11y ago"People" isn't one person. Maybe most people choose sweeter yogurt, but that doesn't mean there isn't a substantial minority of people who would prefer less sweet yogurt. Who knows if these tests even accurately measure what people would actually buy? I remember that Coca-Cola did such tests too once...
- jzwinck 11y agoThe guy I spoke with was unequivocal: they don't think they can sell enough to make it worth any shelf space at all. Their brand in my market gets allocated enough space for about five flavors. They know exactly what sells how much and where, and they know it to some extent for their competitors too (none of whom produce reduced-sugar, but most of whom do produce reduced-fat). Now, if your argument is that these full time professional market researchers can't figure out what people would actually buy...well, I thought the guy sounded extremely intelligent and well trained, and he had no reason to deceive me.
- anentropic 11y agoit's a vicious circle this is where there's a role for regulation to break the loop