ARE YOU HUNGRY ???

Profitable opportunities in Marketing are not created on a daily basis. Those are rare and you need to be vigilant to grab those before others. Recent moves by the government on food have created  massive opportunities for  vendor’s but it seems no one has concentrated on getting something out of this so far.

Health Ministry of Sri Lanka has taken a bold decision to ban fast food from school canteen’s and make fruits , red rice , Gram  available in those places. On the face of it this was viewed as a logical decision but it may create lot of practical issues as well. 

A report says that there are an estimated 792 million people across the globe who are malnourished but more than 1 billion overweight adults. It further says overweight children are 50 per cent more likely to become overweight adults . 

It leaves us to answer  two questions. Is this practical and did anyone evaluate the marketing opportunities created by this new rule ? 

Soft drink and chip vending machines were banned in schools by the Australian Medical Association in 2005 to tackle the "obesity epidemic". But the AMA stopped the ban on unhealthy food being sold in school canteens noting the pressure to be economically viable, but advocates incentives for promoting healthy lunch boxes, training for canteen staff and "best-practice canteens" to be models for others.

Teachers and parents play an important role in educating children about food choices but healthy food messages taught at home or in the classroom are being undermined by advertising and the easy availability of junk food. Kids and young generations are exposed to junk food advertisements and heavy promotions by these companies to create a fantasy. They are victims of this and there are no attempts to counter attacks by anyone in the market with so called “healthy food”.

 It is doubtful whether you can ban things such as food in an open market economy. Junk food  is considered as an easy option for parents for their kids’ and the younger generation visit such outlets as a part of their life style. Changing such a pattern instantly is likely to be practically impossible and most importantly doing it without giving proper options may create lot of practical issues. 

At the same time if the government is going to go-ahead with this, there must be a great opportunity for a marketer. Though there are many promotional efforts to market junk foods and numerous well established popular branded outlets, no one ever think of starting a health food chain. Increasing demand for healthier food options and government laws preventing fast food may create major demand for such food options.  There is room for any company to come out with  innovative food options based on healthy ingredients.  A simple example is, though there were attempts to promote bread made out of rice flour no one has ever taken a serious attempt to popularize and properly market it in Sri Lanka. Such a move may indirectly motivate and contribute national production as many junk foods are made out of imported ingredients. 

If you analyze the reasons to go for fast food , number one is convenience. If a marketer takes a leap on introducing a range of healthy products and make it available in a convenient ways; both parents and kids of the young generation may change their preferences.

What is required is a marketer with an innovative mindset and good promotional strategy to counter junk food. Finding buyers and making it a profitable venture will not be an issue at all. 

Steve Elbert once said ;

“We think fast food is equivalent to pornography, nutritionally speaking”.  

We need a paradigm shift.