HBR Article Examines Current Books About “Big Food”

Writing in the May 2013 edition of the Harvard Business Review (HBR), the editorial director of the HBR Press, Tim Sullivan, considers the questions raised by three new books that examine the evolution of the food industry and its relationship to consumer health. Turning to Michael Moss’s Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Melanie Warner’s Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over the American Meal and Jon Krampner’s Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food, Sullivan notes that despite the blame leveled at food processors and marketers, “it’s much harder to tell the public that they are partly culpable for the state of their personal and national health (food, after all, is not crack) than it is to point the finger at Big Business, Wall Street, or the government.”

“When monoliths take over and aim to get us ‘addicted’ to their product— whether we’re talking about processed food or something else new makers can step in and serve up tastes that aren’t mass but could become so,” concludes Sullivan, who points to the independent peanut butter manufacturers that once used government standards to ensure the high quality of their product. “Instead of shaking a fist at Big Food and bad health, as Moss and Warner do, entrepreneurs can change the game. Want to compete with Big Food? Make something great.”