Private Brands

By: Sue Borra, RD, Senior Vice President, Communications and Strategic Planning, Food Marketing Institute

You see it often in a debate, one side makes a bold accusatory claim and the other side has to decide whether to actively engage and risk calling further attention to the assertion or simply refuse to honor it with a response and hope others understand it as ludicrous or false. As the association serving as the “Voice of Food Retail,” FMI must make that decisive call each time we see another account pop up claiming to unveil the manipulative marketing secrets of the supermarket or purporting to blow the lid off the sneaky psychology of the grocer. 

The medium and format may change, but these recurring exposés all bear the familiar scent of fear-baiting embellishment and tend to hit the same tired notes. That puts us as advocates of the food retail industry in the place of having to choose the battle of when, where, how and how hard do we seek to squelch these myths. In the age of social media, where mistruths left uncontested are given open range to spread like wildfire, the notion of letting sleeping dogs lie is simply no longer an option.  

To help in challenging supermarket myths that are all too frequently repeated, FMI has added a special page to our website, www.fmi.org/SupermarketMyths, dedicated to dispelling the inaccurate notions sometimes leveled against the food retail industry.  Since launching this page, some have already responded to our invitation to add to the growing collection of supermarket myths in need of being put to rest. And in fairness, some have accused us of kicking a sleeping dog.

The rationale behind the myth busting web page is to provide our members with resources to confront the misperception being perpetuated every time they hear or see it, so we don’t have to play whack-a-mole on an ongoing basis. If we challenge the myths with facts, we lesson the likelihood of repetition.  Also, because most myths have a glimmer of truth about them, if we provide a balanced response perhaps it will highlight the facts, inform the public and address an issue rather than distort it. 

As part of this ongoing campaign, we invite you to grow our list of supermarket myths and submit myths for us to bust. The more myths we collect the more we can leave whack-a-mole up to the kids at the fun centers. Visit www.fmi.org/SupermarketMyths to see all our supermarket myths busted and submit a myth.

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