Brand Name Fruit
Fellow Haas Scholar and amateur photographer Dashal Moore made known to me recently the latest trend in food product licensing: Disney® California fruit, SpongeBob Squarepants® spinach and Tasmanian Devil apples. Time-strapped readers and those skeptical of links to external sites like "CNN.com" can follow the action below, as I recapitulate the violence of the article's opening section:
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Mickey Mouse, SpongeBob and the Tasmanian Devil are coming to a produce aisle near you.The cartoon characters are popping up on fruit and vegetable packaging across the country as growers strike licensing deals with entertainment companies hungry to cultivate positive images among health-conscious parents and kids.
Walt Disney Co., with its overwhelming cartoon capital and cultural clout, is the most significant entry in the produce business.
The entertainment giant is licensing characters to Indianapolis-based produce distributor Imagination Farms LLC, which has deals with 15 large growers across the country to provide fruits and vegetables for the Disney Garden brand.
"We're doing it predominantly because it is the right thing to do, but secondarily because it is the right business to be in," said Harry Dollman, head of food products licensing for Disney.
"Concerns about the right nutrition for kids is not a fad; it's not something that will be overtaken by another trend," he said.
Neither Disney nor Imagination Farms would discuss terms of the deal.
"Imagination Farms" seems to be one of those giant limited liability corporations mass producing non-organic, low nutrient fruits and vegetables. And then we read this brain buster:
Organic apples with Winnie the Pooh -- the mascot for Disney Garden organic selections -- are due out sometime in September.
Disney and Imagination are, it seems, in on the organic craze too. Which is a good thing, though of course who knows what organic certification requires? And there are those more eloquent than I who have better understood the complexities of major LLCs entering into the rapidly growing organic market.
It may seem that I am hedging a bit, and that is correct. Something about branded fruit still seems so sinister, and so while all parties involved are expressing their altruistic intentions, I am searching for the deeper, darker (sinister) meaning of it all.
Enter the PEZ, that dispenser of all things candy coated; pure sugar in a plastic lever, your cartoon pals puke it up, you munch it up, etc., etc. In the PEZ we discover the double standard behind it all, the truth, as it were, behind Disney and Warner Bros. decision to enter the "organic" food market. When it is profitable to do so, either in actual, realizable profits, or in symbolic brand enhancement via association with healthy eating habits, Disney and Warner Bros. will sign on the dotted line.
This is, again, not necessarily a bad thing. Disney, for instance, recently terminated its contract with McDonald's to provide licensed Disney characters for Happy Meal® promotions. Though Disney denied that child obesity concerns were a motivating factor behind the split, it is at least telling that ABC News, a division of ABC and thus subsidiary of the Walt Disney Co., would publish an article alleging the contrary. Clearly Disney wants people to think the split was a child obesity issue, even as they publicly reassure McDonald's. No burning bridges, that sort of thing.
So now we have PEZ: future casualty of Disney's need to publicly align itself with healthy eating habits? Only time will tell. Perhaps Disney has already stopped licensing its characters to PEZ manufacturers. There are of course many, many other candied products featuring cartoon characters, and there is no reason to think the owners of these images will refrain from having their cake and eating it too. Kids can now do the same, and polish off their Disney fruit snacks with a delicious Disney PEZ.
