In partnership with Emmy-winning comedic production company Funny Or Die, Peel Back the Label has launched a new video highlighting the absurdity of deceptive food labels with a tongue-in-cheek take on how far food companies are willing to go to confuse consumers into buying their products.
The video features two food executives — one from a milk company and the other from a marketing agency — scheming over how to separate their product from the rest of the pack, with consumers paying the price as they encounter increasingly ridiculous deceptive and misleading food labels with terms like “non-GMO” and “natural.”
“Anyone who has ever been to the grocery store knows the feeling of being manipulated when faced with dozens of labels all saying different things about the same types of products. With this video, we shine a spotlight – in a decidedly tongue-in-cheek way – on just how difficult some food companies are making grocery shopping, something which should be a simple and straightforward endeavor for consumers,” said Jim Mulhern, President of the National Milk Producers Federation. “The scenes portrayed in this video will hit close to home for consumers because it’s what we all experience every day at the grocery store. It’s gotten ridiculous out there, and it’s time for food companies to stop trying to hype their products with meaningless distinctions.”
The Peel Back the Label campaign, launched last year by America’s dairy farmers to expose the troubling trend of fear mongering in food marketing, is giving consumers access to the information they need to separate hype from fact as they work to make informed food decisions for their families. It also seeks to empower consumers to tell their own stories about the negative impacts of deceptive labeling, and share information with their social networks to further encourage food manufacturers to stop this practice.
Today’s video release with Funny Or Die is the latest effort by the campaign to highlight food company “bad actors” that are regularly using misleading food labeling or deceptive marketing to increase sales by stoking consumer fear and misconceptions about food. Last month, Peel Back the Label singled out three dairy companies – including yogurt maker Stonyfield – due to their use of particularly egregious tactics, which include using children as props in their fear-mongering about GMOs in order to sell more products.
To date, Peel Back the Label has featured more than a dozen bad actors from across the food industry. A full list of case studies may be found here.
