Demi
Thu, May-27-04, 07:53
Although not really about low carbing, I came across this little gem courtesy of RedFlagsDaily.com (http://www.redflagsweekly.com/) and thought I'd share it here:
Food makers urge doctors to push specific brands
By KATY MCLAUGHLIN
The Associated Press
5/25/04 9:03 AM
and
JANE SPENCER
The Wall Street Journal
When Leonard Cohen of New Paltz, N.Y., took his eight-year-old son for a checkup last year, the doctor told him about the brain-boosting power of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish. Then, he jotted down an unusual "prescription" -- the 800 number for Vital Choice, a mail-order seafood company.
The Cohens placed an order for more than $600 of seafood, including wild Alaskan king salmon, albacore tuna and Ikura caviar. "He's a pediatrician," Mr. Cohen says. "If he suggests something, we'll take it very seriously."
Those are magic words for the $500 billion-plus U.S. food industry. As food companies look for ways to cash in on the nation's obsession with healthy eating, an increasing number are copying marketing tactics that long have been used by the pharmaceuticals industry: They are pitching their products directly to doctors. The hope is that doctors will start recommending specific foods -- and even brand names -- to patients.
Some of the new initiatives are being used to market small, health-oriented niche products such as exotic fruit juices or low-toxin seafood. Now, some of the major players in the food industry, including PepsiCo Inc. and General Mills Inc., also are targeting health-care providers to help market their products. Doctors are being asked to hand out everything from coupons for Baked Doritos, made by Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo, as an alternative to higher-fat regular chips, to sample packages of Molly McButter, a low-fat butter substitute made by Alberto-Culver Co. Other products being marketed in this way range from walnuts to specialty steaks.
Some food companies are sending representatives right to doctors' doors, just as drug companies do. Revival Soy, a North Carolina snack company, has sales representatives visit doctors' offices to drop off samples of snacks such as Chocolate Raspberry Zing soy bars and Honey Mustard soy chips. The company leaves pamphlets encouraging doctors to "pseudo-prescribe Revival."
In addition, physicians employed by food companies are presenting information at medical conferences. This month, at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists annual meeting in Philadelphia, James Greenberg, an obstetrician gynecologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, made a presentation about the benefits of cranberry juice cocktail for preventing urinary-tract infections. Dr. Greenberg is a paid consultant for Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. Ocean Spray says it has long conducted research and marketed health information to consumers, but that in the past couple of years it has refocused energies on physicians.
The new marketing strategies come as food companies scramble to cash into a fast-growing segment of the U.S. food industry. "Functional" foods and beverages -- the term for edible products that promise health benefits -- are one of the fastest growing niches in the food industry, representing a $13.6 billion business in the U.S., up more than 25 percent since 2000, according to market analyst Mintel Group, and representing nearly 2.7 percent of the total U.S. food industry. The success has encouraged other food companies to become more aggressive about marketing the health benefits of their products.
Companies hope to tap into the trust patients have in their doctors' recommendations. "When patients get samples from their doctors, it's a more authoritative referral, whether it's a prescription drug, or a food product," says Al DeChellis, a vice president at Alberto-Culver, which markets Mrs. Dash and Molly McButter through doctors.
The new approach to food marketing comes at a time when regulators are making it easier for companies to advertise health claims about their products. Until recently, food companies were allowed to advertise the health benefits of their products only if conclusive evidence, reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, supported the claim. But last year, the FDA changed its policy to allow "qualified health claims," enabling companies to put health claims on their product labels based on limited and preliminary scientific evidence. On March 31, walnuts became the first food to receive FDA approval to make a qualified health claim -- that walnuts may help reduce the risk of heart disease.
The FDA's new labeling rules have drawn criticism from consumer advocates, who say the qualified language will create confusion for consumers -- and even for doctors. Late last year, two consumer groups, Public Citizen and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, filed a lawsuit against the FDA in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying the FDA's new labeling policy violates federal food-labeling laws that require health claims on food to be backed up by "significant scientific agreement."
The FDA says the qualified claims give consumers information about potential new health benefits as the science comes to light.
In some cases, there is dispute over the health benefits. Revival Soy's literature, for example, says that peer-reviewed studies show eating soy can "reduce mid-life symptoms like hot flashes," among other health benefits. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that soy has been disappointing in rigorous scientific studies as a treatment for hot flashes.
Consumer advocates say the marketing tactics are raising some of the same ethical concerns that have drawn widespread criticism in the pharmaceuticals industry. For years, drug-company sales representatives have lavished gifts upon doctors, including golf vacations, cash and expensive dinners in an effort to get doctors to prescribe specific brand-name drugs. While the food-industry marketing tactics aren't at that level, gifts, grants and sponsorships from food companies given to doctors or medical organizations are triggering similar concerns.
In rare cases, food companies are rewarding doctors for recommending their products to patients. American Grass Fed Beef, a mail-order beef company, sends doctors who refer customers to it a free $54.95 box of center-cut tenderloin beef filets as a sign of appreciation. "We keep track of it with our computer, and every so often, maybe once a quarter, send them a box of steak," says Patricia Whisnant, owner of American Grass Fed Beef in Doniphan, Mo. Unlike most commercial beef, grass-fed beef also comes from cows that aren't treated with drugs like growth hormones, steroids or antibiotics.
All the competing health claims can be baffling for consumers. One approach to sorting through the information is reading up on the issues on the government Web site www.medlineplus.gov. The site directs visitors to government and medical-association publications on a range of health issues.
To see some of the medical research that doctors use, go to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez. Type in an issue, such as "cranberry juice" or "soluble fiber," and the site yields a number of descriptions of the latest studies. While much of the text is written in medical mumbo jumbo, the summary at the end of each entry can be easier to comprehend. Reading documents such as these can be particularly useful prior to a visit to the doctor, so that consumers can go to the appointment armed with questions about the results of various studies.
Increasingly, food companies also are working directly with drug companies to get their message out to patients. Since doctors frequently hand out free drug samples to patients, food companies are getting coupons for their products added to the packages. In one promotion last summer, samples of Pravachol, a heart drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., were distributed along with kits containing coupons for, or samples of, a half-dozen food products. They included coupons for Everfresh juice, a unit of National Beverage Corp., and Kellogg Co.'s Kashi breakfast cereal, according to HealthSentials, a division of PPS Medical Marketing Group in Pine Brook, N.J., a company that specializes in bundling drug samples with consumer-product samples or coupons.
Sometimes coupons or food giveaways such as these come prepacked into, say, a child's backpack or a women's makeup bag. Doctors then can slip a pharmaceutical sample into the kit before giving it to the patient.
A Bristol-Myers Squibb spokeswoman said its Pravachol kit "only included products that we verified would contribute to a heart-healthy diet."
Companies from Pom Wonderful, a maker of pomegranate juice, to Ocean Spray are participating at a variety of medical conferences alongside drug companies. McNeil Nutritionals, a unit of Johnson & Johnson that sells Benecol, a butter substitute that promotes low cholesterol and Splenda, a sugar-free sweetener, among other products, started exhibiting at medical conferences two years ago. Last year, the company attended 22 medical meetings where salespeople, dieticians and servers answered questions and handed out samples of toast spread with Benecol and strawberries sprinkled with Splenda.
------
Selling Food as 'Medicine'
A look at food companies that are marketing their products through doctors.
ITEM: Cheerios/General Mills
HEALTH CLAIM: Cheerios is high in soluble fiber, useful for lowering bad cholesterol.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company has funded the creation of literature about fiber for thousands of nurses.
COMMENT: Other grains and fruits contain as much or more soluble fiber as Cheerios.
ITEM: Cranberry Juice/Ocean Spray
HEALTH CLAIM: Juice helps prevent urinary tract infections.
MARKETING TACTIC: Over the next few weeks, 5,000 New England doctors will get letters from a physician who is a paid consultant to Ocean Spray about cranberry juice cocktail.
COMMENT: Most of the research has been done on "cranberry juice cocktail," not pure cranberry juice.
ITEM: Oats/Quaker Foods
HEALTH CLAIM: Oats are high in both total fiber and soluble fiber, both of which help lower cholesterol.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company has funded the creation of tear sheets about soluble fiber for nurses to hand out to patients. Tear sheets emphasize eating oats.
COMMENT: Oats are high in fiber, but so are a lot of other things, like beans, vegetables and fruit.
ITEM: Soy snack bars, shakes and chips/Revival Soy
HEALTH CLAIM: Company says eating soy can help with menopause and other health issues.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company hands out snack samples at medical meetings and sends reps to doctors' offices to drop off free samples.
COMMENT: Some medical experts say soy has been disappointing as a treatment for hot flashes.
ITEM: Wild Alaskan Salmon/Vital Choice Seafood
HEALTH CLAIM: The fish is free of antibiotics, pesticides, coloring agents and growth hormones.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company hands out grilled salmon samples at medical conferences, and educates doctors about its products.
COMMENT: Wild salmon contains fewer chemicals such as PCBs, mercury and colorants than farmed salmon.
ITEM: YoBaby Yogurt/Stonyfield Farm
HEALTH CLAIM: YoBaby yogurt helps replace intestinal flora in children taking antibiotics.
MARKETING TACTIC: In June, 700,000 kits will be sent out to doctors, who can give them to patients receiving their first prescription of Omnicef, an antibiotic.
COMMENT: Most yogurt contains beneficial bacteria useful for people on antibiotics, though levels may vary.
ITEM: Walnuts/California Walnut Commission
HEALTH CLAIM: Walnuts provide healthy fats, including Omega-3 fatty acids.
MARKETING TACTIC: California Walnut Commission is sponsoring a curriculum at an Alabama hospital to teach nurse practitioners about healthy fats.
COMMENT: Sponsoring continuing education courses for health-care providers is a common practice of pharmaceutical marketers.
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0037_BC_WSJ--FoodMarketing&&news&newsflash-financial
Food makers urge doctors to push specific brands
By KATY MCLAUGHLIN
The Associated Press
5/25/04 9:03 AM
and
JANE SPENCER
The Wall Street Journal
When Leonard Cohen of New Paltz, N.Y., took his eight-year-old son for a checkup last year, the doctor told him about the brain-boosting power of Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish. Then, he jotted down an unusual "prescription" -- the 800 number for Vital Choice, a mail-order seafood company.
The Cohens placed an order for more than $600 of seafood, including wild Alaskan king salmon, albacore tuna and Ikura caviar. "He's a pediatrician," Mr. Cohen says. "If he suggests something, we'll take it very seriously."
Those are magic words for the $500 billion-plus U.S. food industry. As food companies look for ways to cash in on the nation's obsession with healthy eating, an increasing number are copying marketing tactics that long have been used by the pharmaceuticals industry: They are pitching their products directly to doctors. The hope is that doctors will start recommending specific foods -- and even brand names -- to patients.
Some of the new initiatives are being used to market small, health-oriented niche products such as exotic fruit juices or low-toxin seafood. Now, some of the major players in the food industry, including PepsiCo Inc. and General Mills Inc., also are targeting health-care providers to help market their products. Doctors are being asked to hand out everything from coupons for Baked Doritos, made by Frito-Lay, a unit of PepsiCo, as an alternative to higher-fat regular chips, to sample packages of Molly McButter, a low-fat butter substitute made by Alberto-Culver Co. Other products being marketed in this way range from walnuts to specialty steaks.
Some food companies are sending representatives right to doctors' doors, just as drug companies do. Revival Soy, a North Carolina snack company, has sales representatives visit doctors' offices to drop off samples of snacks such as Chocolate Raspberry Zing soy bars and Honey Mustard soy chips. The company leaves pamphlets encouraging doctors to "pseudo-prescribe Revival."
In addition, physicians employed by food companies are presenting information at medical conferences. This month, at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists annual meeting in Philadelphia, James Greenberg, an obstetrician gynecologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, made a presentation about the benefits of cranberry juice cocktail for preventing urinary-tract infections. Dr. Greenberg is a paid consultant for Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. Ocean Spray says it has long conducted research and marketed health information to consumers, but that in the past couple of years it has refocused energies on physicians.
The new marketing strategies come as food companies scramble to cash into a fast-growing segment of the U.S. food industry. "Functional" foods and beverages -- the term for edible products that promise health benefits -- are one of the fastest growing niches in the food industry, representing a $13.6 billion business in the U.S., up more than 25 percent since 2000, according to market analyst Mintel Group, and representing nearly 2.7 percent of the total U.S. food industry. The success has encouraged other food companies to become more aggressive about marketing the health benefits of their products.
Companies hope to tap into the trust patients have in their doctors' recommendations. "When patients get samples from their doctors, it's a more authoritative referral, whether it's a prescription drug, or a food product," says Al DeChellis, a vice president at Alberto-Culver, which markets Mrs. Dash and Molly McButter through doctors.
The new approach to food marketing comes at a time when regulators are making it easier for companies to advertise health claims about their products. Until recently, food companies were allowed to advertise the health benefits of their products only if conclusive evidence, reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, supported the claim. But last year, the FDA changed its policy to allow "qualified health claims," enabling companies to put health claims on their product labels based on limited and preliminary scientific evidence. On March 31, walnuts became the first food to receive FDA approval to make a qualified health claim -- that walnuts may help reduce the risk of heart disease.
The FDA's new labeling rules have drawn criticism from consumer advocates, who say the qualified language will create confusion for consumers -- and even for doctors. Late last year, two consumer groups, Public Citizen and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, filed a lawsuit against the FDA in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, saying the FDA's new labeling policy violates federal food-labeling laws that require health claims on food to be backed up by "significant scientific agreement."
The FDA says the qualified claims give consumers information about potential new health benefits as the science comes to light.
In some cases, there is dispute over the health benefits. Revival Soy's literature, for example, says that peer-reviewed studies show eating soy can "reduce mid-life symptoms like hot flashes," among other health benefits. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that soy has been disappointing in rigorous scientific studies as a treatment for hot flashes.
Consumer advocates say the marketing tactics are raising some of the same ethical concerns that have drawn widespread criticism in the pharmaceuticals industry. For years, drug-company sales representatives have lavished gifts upon doctors, including golf vacations, cash and expensive dinners in an effort to get doctors to prescribe specific brand-name drugs. While the food-industry marketing tactics aren't at that level, gifts, grants and sponsorships from food companies given to doctors or medical organizations are triggering similar concerns.
In rare cases, food companies are rewarding doctors for recommending their products to patients. American Grass Fed Beef, a mail-order beef company, sends doctors who refer customers to it a free $54.95 box of center-cut tenderloin beef filets as a sign of appreciation. "We keep track of it with our computer, and every so often, maybe once a quarter, send them a box of steak," says Patricia Whisnant, owner of American Grass Fed Beef in Doniphan, Mo. Unlike most commercial beef, grass-fed beef also comes from cows that aren't treated with drugs like growth hormones, steroids or antibiotics.
All the competing health claims can be baffling for consumers. One approach to sorting through the information is reading up on the issues on the government Web site www.medlineplus.gov. The site directs visitors to government and medical-association publications on a range of health issues.
To see some of the medical research that doctors use, go to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez. Type in an issue, such as "cranberry juice" or "soluble fiber," and the site yields a number of descriptions of the latest studies. While much of the text is written in medical mumbo jumbo, the summary at the end of each entry can be easier to comprehend. Reading documents such as these can be particularly useful prior to a visit to the doctor, so that consumers can go to the appointment armed with questions about the results of various studies.
Increasingly, food companies also are working directly with drug companies to get their message out to patients. Since doctors frequently hand out free drug samples to patients, food companies are getting coupons for their products added to the packages. In one promotion last summer, samples of Pravachol, a heart drug made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., were distributed along with kits containing coupons for, or samples of, a half-dozen food products. They included coupons for Everfresh juice, a unit of National Beverage Corp., and Kellogg Co.'s Kashi breakfast cereal, according to HealthSentials, a division of PPS Medical Marketing Group in Pine Brook, N.J., a company that specializes in bundling drug samples with consumer-product samples or coupons.
Sometimes coupons or food giveaways such as these come prepacked into, say, a child's backpack or a women's makeup bag. Doctors then can slip a pharmaceutical sample into the kit before giving it to the patient.
A Bristol-Myers Squibb spokeswoman said its Pravachol kit "only included products that we verified would contribute to a heart-healthy diet."
Companies from Pom Wonderful, a maker of pomegranate juice, to Ocean Spray are participating at a variety of medical conferences alongside drug companies. McNeil Nutritionals, a unit of Johnson & Johnson that sells Benecol, a butter substitute that promotes low cholesterol and Splenda, a sugar-free sweetener, among other products, started exhibiting at medical conferences two years ago. Last year, the company attended 22 medical meetings where salespeople, dieticians and servers answered questions and handed out samples of toast spread with Benecol and strawberries sprinkled with Splenda.
------
Selling Food as 'Medicine'
A look at food companies that are marketing their products through doctors.
ITEM: Cheerios/General Mills
HEALTH CLAIM: Cheerios is high in soluble fiber, useful for lowering bad cholesterol.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company has funded the creation of literature about fiber for thousands of nurses.
COMMENT: Other grains and fruits contain as much or more soluble fiber as Cheerios.
ITEM: Cranberry Juice/Ocean Spray
HEALTH CLAIM: Juice helps prevent urinary tract infections.
MARKETING TACTIC: Over the next few weeks, 5,000 New England doctors will get letters from a physician who is a paid consultant to Ocean Spray about cranberry juice cocktail.
COMMENT: Most of the research has been done on "cranberry juice cocktail," not pure cranberry juice.
ITEM: Oats/Quaker Foods
HEALTH CLAIM: Oats are high in both total fiber and soluble fiber, both of which help lower cholesterol.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company has funded the creation of tear sheets about soluble fiber for nurses to hand out to patients. Tear sheets emphasize eating oats.
COMMENT: Oats are high in fiber, but so are a lot of other things, like beans, vegetables and fruit.
ITEM: Soy snack bars, shakes and chips/Revival Soy
HEALTH CLAIM: Company says eating soy can help with menopause and other health issues.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company hands out snack samples at medical meetings and sends reps to doctors' offices to drop off free samples.
COMMENT: Some medical experts say soy has been disappointing as a treatment for hot flashes.
ITEM: Wild Alaskan Salmon/Vital Choice Seafood
HEALTH CLAIM: The fish is free of antibiotics, pesticides, coloring agents and growth hormones.
MARKETING TACTIC: Company hands out grilled salmon samples at medical conferences, and educates doctors about its products.
COMMENT: Wild salmon contains fewer chemicals such as PCBs, mercury and colorants than farmed salmon.
ITEM: YoBaby Yogurt/Stonyfield Farm
HEALTH CLAIM: YoBaby yogurt helps replace intestinal flora in children taking antibiotics.
MARKETING TACTIC: In June, 700,000 kits will be sent out to doctors, who can give them to patients receiving their first prescription of Omnicef, an antibiotic.
COMMENT: Most yogurt contains beneficial bacteria useful for people on antibiotics, though levels may vary.
ITEM: Walnuts/California Walnut Commission
HEALTH CLAIM: Walnuts provide healthy fats, including Omega-3 fatty acids.
MARKETING TACTIC: California Walnut Commission is sponsoring a curriculum at an Alabama hospital to teach nurse practitioners about healthy fats.
COMMENT: Sponsoring continuing education courses for health-care providers is a common practice of pharmaceutical marketers.
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?f0037_BC_WSJ--FoodMarketing&&news&newsflash-financial