FAIRFIELD, CT—America's agribusiness industries announced today that the entirety of the food marketing and labeling industry had died a painful death in concert with the latest release of Pepperidge Farm’s Cheddar Cheese and Bacon Goldfish Crackers. Cited as the reason for this announcement was the product's packaging, which features a large sticker proclaiming “As Always: Poison Free!!!”
While most of these groups were in agreement that things had gone too far and that maybe everyone should retreat in solitude to make a stark assessment of their chosen professions, dissenting voices responded almost immediately.
“I just don’t understand what the fuss is all about,” said an incredulous Douglas Conant, CEO of Pepperidge Farm’s parent corporation the Campbell Soup Company. “Our product has always had the highest safety standards and we simply wish to highlight our long and proud history of not putting any industrial-grade poisons or corrosive chemicals into our snack crackers.”
“Besides,” he added. “It’s not like they complained when we slapped 'No Trans Fats' on everything. I think this will all blow over once we re-launch our chicken noodle soups with the slogan ‘Just chicken, no rat meat'.”
However, some industry observers see this as just the first wave of products declaring the absence of any noxious ingredients coupled with the mildly slanderous implication that other products contain said killing ingredients, a process that began with trans fat labeling for products that that had never contained them.
Indeed, by mid-morning Nabisco had announced that boxes of their Teddy Grahams brand of cookies would declare the absence of any small shards of glass or metal shavings.
“This is just the beginning,” observed marketing analyst Henry Southern. “Soon it’ll be an unending deluge of proclamations about the absence of crystal meth, date rape drugs, sand, rusty nails, Islamofascism, chemical compounds that turn you gay… whatever people are afraid of these days. Then it’ll move to ads saying ‘Drink Pepsi: Because you don’t want to signal the world that it’s OK to rape you’ or ‘Eat Yoplait: Because you know the Holocaust happened… or don’t you?’. It’s all downhill from here. They’ve breached the final decency barrier.
"But this...this has been coming to a head for a long time," he concluded.
Southern pointed to lax marketing standards allowing anything grown in the ground to be labeled "organic," as well as the permission to declare anything not assembled from proteins in a large vat my cackling scientists as "natural". He also noted the lack of standards and creativity in the creation of new products.
For some, this declaration of the death of food marketing just reminds them of the last time the food industry, pent up with revulsion for itself, declared the death of marketing and creativity: last year's release of Doritos Artisan Vanilla Mojito Chipotle flavor chips. 'Artisan,' of course, referring to the process of omitting the irregular chips the food processing machine stamped out.
"Oh God, those were horrid," remembered food historian Jasper Williams. "But we saw it coming. I mean those were the only three flavors anyone had come up with in years and they were bound to be combined somehow, someway. I thought the 'Extreme' version of the chips as well as the 'Gamer Edition' were a little beyond the pale, but that's what they do. We've moved past it, though. They started making cherry a central flavor again and someone thought up the wasabi flavor. They'll be back to trumping up non-existent health benefits and vitamins in no time."
All of this was of little concern to Conant and the Campbell’s company, which noted that if people wanted to eat Progresso brand soups that may or may not be entirely comprised of rat or possum meat, or sample Ritz crackers that may use strychnine to achieve their trademark buttery flavor, that it was fine with him. He just wanted to make sure people knew that the Campbell’s and Pepperidge Farm brands contained no such substances.
“Frankly it’s just a tiny labeling issue. Whether it slowly degrades the ability of the American people to mentally withstand the process of shopping in a supermarket and slowly chips away at the point of language and meaning of words isn’t my concern,” Conant observed.
“Besides, we’re excited about new products we’re going to launch. We’ve been working with the National Corn Growers Association to create a line of apples, cabbages, and cucumbers that are entirely made out of corn syrup. That, my friends, is the future.”
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