Kraft Heinz made a surprising move. The American company decided to take the artificial flavors, preservatives and dyes out of its flagship product Kraft Mac & Cheese. In April 2015 the American worldwide food company announced the complete removal of such ingredients by 2016. The new Kraft Mac & Cheese was officially launched on March, but the “all-natural” product had already been in the market since December 2015. Kraft did not tell about the new changes in its recipe and nobody noticed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-kul627Y3g
Over 365.000 people signed a petition asking Kraft to “remove all dangerous artificial food dyes from their line of Mac & Cheese.” Kraft responded accordingly and changed some ingredients of its flagship product. But despite all the changes, the “new” Mac & Cheese had the same signature color and the company still sold over 50 million of them. All these sales were made before the company made a formal announcement about the new recipe. That is why Kraft is calling its campaign “the world’s largest blind taste test”. “We wanted fans to experience the new recipe for themselves without being prompted.”
In my opinion, Kraft’s marketing campaign has been really smart since the beginning. The company promised to remove all dangerous artificial food dyes from their line of Mac & Cheese and they kept their promise. Moreover, Kraft was smart enough not to tell customers about the changes the new recipe had and customers could not tell the difference: “It’s changed. But it hasn’t.” Kraft was able to keep its promise and maintain the same taste and color of its iconic product at the same time. The company’s success may lead other companies to follow the same path and avoid such harmful and unnecessary food ingredients in the future. The food industry has now the chance to make its products healthier. If one of the largest food companies in the world can change its product, making it healthier without compromising on taste, then other food companies can do the same. Artificial flavors, preservatives and dyes could become something of the past.
http://www.brandchannel.com/2016/03/07/kraft-macaroni-cheese-030716/
https://www.change.org/p/kraft-stop-using-dangerous-food-dyes-in-our-mac-cheese
Wow! Great share Pablo.
I think this is a great campaign. In the world of marketing sustainability we address corporate transparency often. Companies should always be reporting their efforts because once they stop, someone will call them out. This is a great example of how a company made a shift due to consumer demand and didn’t shout it to the world…until 3 months after.
I think we’ve all experienced the sadness when one of our favourite products just doesn’t meet our needs the way it used to. Once you talk about it with your friends someone says, “I think they changed the recipe” and immediately, you ask why would the company do that. KD in particular has a devote following for being a lazy alternative. These are people who aren’t experts in the kitchen and trust KD for its consistency. Psychologically, changing the recipe and posting it on the box, could have resulted in millions of consumers reporting shifts in taste etc.