Breakfast and Beer
Let's talk about two
daily essentials: Breakfast and, of course, beer.
Mass marketers of breakfast
cereals have been in a downward sales spiral for about a decade, so they're
getting back to their roots (sort of).
Few folks know that
some of the oldest and biggest brands of today's artificially flavored,
neon-colored, empty-calorie cereals started out as health foods, often
springing from religious or utopian movements.
For instance, Ralston
Purina's Wheat Chex cereal was first packaged in 1937 under the name of
Shredded Ralston, specially formulated for followers of Ralstonism.
What was that? A
strict, bizarre, racist cult with a demonic mission: To make America a nation
of Caucasian purity.
Webster Edgerly, the
unhinged founder of Ralstonism, proposed an efficient means for achieving his
pure-white dream world: Castrate all males of "impure" lineages at
birth.
The big manufacturers today aren't going full-tilt Ralstonist to reclaim market share, but they are going back to pitching their products as health food, hoping to woo millennials who want cereals with more protein, fiber, and natural ingredients and none of the artificial additives the industry has been dumping into its Choka-Mocha-Salted-Sugar Bombs.
Some brands are
seeking Good-For-Ya credibility by buying out organic brands such as Kashi
(consumed by Kellogg's) and Annie's Homegrown (swallowed by General Mills).
But the sweeping shift
of this $10-billion market to healthier alternatives is, in fact, an enormous,
grassroots victory, driven by the organic movement, groups like Center for
Science in the Public Interest, Good Food entrepreneurs, fearless nutritionists
and especially by countless moms, dads and kids who simply refused to swallow
the industry's crap.
Now that breakfast is
out of the way... beer! Last year, Anheuser-Busch InBev mounted a
multimillion-dollar coup on America. Not on our country, but on its name.
For six months, the
beer behemoth expropriated our nation's name for a tacky advertising campaign,
rebranding its Budweiser product "America." But the PR ploy backfired
when a flurry of stinging media stories pointed out that Bud is owned by a
Brazilian consortium based in Belgium.
Undeterred by facts,
BigBud — still claiming to be red-white-and-blue-blooded American — announced
that it has invested beaucoup bucks here to improve its beer quality.
Mostly, though, that
enhancement has come from buying out ten local craft breweries, such as Goose
Island in Chicago, Karbach in Houston and Wicked Weed in Asheville.
AB InBev grabbed these
top-quality, independent brew-makers because they represent the real beer of
today's America, rapidly taking customers away from the giant purveyor of bland
suds.
Indeed, sales figures
tell the tale of Bud's beer bust: Last year the company sold 14.4 million
barrels of Budweiser in the US, less than a third of its volume in 1988's
peak-suds year. Meanwhile, craft breweries are gaining market share —
production of good beer was up 12 percent last year to 24.6 million barrels.
So, what better way to
welcome the new year than with a breakfast of healthy cereal, a pint of a good
craft brewski, and with that good things keep happening in the food world.
Jim Hightower is
a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the
book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow. Hightower
has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers
That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small
businesses, and just-plain-folks.
