The name that the person who prepares a food gives to that food, ultimately affects what we choose to eat. This is a simplified way to sum up the essence of the MIT University Laboratory’s research on food systems and new food trends: How labels impact the way we eat.
In fact, changing views of what is happening and what lies ahead is a sign of the times in the modern world in all its guises. The food space follows the modern trend in the field of semiotics and terminology, but the interesting thing is that it is moving towards solutions that pave the way for the future of the industry.
One of the examples, which the MIT research concluded, is that the phrases “climate change” and “increased carbon dioxide emissions” which affect the “greenhouse effect” at hand automatically direct the majority of the consumer public to behave in a certain way: to reduce the total consumption of meat.
Vegan and vegetarian: polarizing terms
It seems like flexibility is the new trend, and the attitude chosen by the global consumer audience, better described by the term flexitarian, which is gaining more and more ground. The brief description of the term is I eat everything, but I don’t overdo it with meat.
Doctors and nutritionists, after all, never said that there is such a thing as bad food, only “bad use of food”. It is probably true that we are coming out of the era of very specific terms, like vegetarian and vegan, that seem very binding and polarizing for the general consumer public, who tend to think “Why should I eat something vegan if I’m not vegan?”. This is exactly where the new verbal orientation of food can help. Companies need to get to the point where they are no longer afraid of new variations of expressions and features that represent the current food trends that consumers choose.
As a matter of fact, the MIT research showed that the phrase “Greek salad” almost doubled consumers who chose it in two consecutive experiments over the terms “vegan salad” or “vegetarian salad”: 60.7%, compared to just 36% in the first experiment and 63.8%; compared to 33.9% in the second.
“Greek” Upgrade
The word “Greek” has been upgraded in the overall global food community because it has become inextricably linked with the “Mediterranean diet”, which has also been significantly upgraded in the minds of the global consumer audience. During past decades (the 1980s and 1990s especially), the word Greek was associated with fatty foods, mainly due to moussaka, souvlaki, and even the evaporated milk added to the Greek frappe. Today, when hearing the words “Greek salad”, most people tend to omit from their view the fat of feta cheese, which an essential part of the Choriatiki salad, the Greek salad par excellence. The word “Greek” gives added value no longer as ethnic food, i.e. the food of a specific cuisine, but as fresh, healthy and above all flexible.
Regardless of the use of the term “Greek”, which, as Greek food market is of most interest to us, the MIT research also pointed out the prioritization of the word “sustainable” in the minds of the global consumer public. It’s not something we don’t know: More and more consumers worldwide are interested in their way of eating being sustainable for the environment and more specifically, respecting the terms of sustainability (and cost) of every food they consume.
When it comes to food, the simpler, the more acceptable. And according to industry experts, the time is near when we will see massive withdrawals of codes from codebooks and companies will emphasize more on the character of the food they offer for sale on the shelves.
