Megan Moore sent me the link to this article about Wal-Mart’s healthy food labels.
I waffle about Wal-Mart. On the one hand, it is a huge company and any effort it makes regarding improving public health or addressing environmental issues has a huge impact. So healthy food labeling can potentially increase consumer demand for healthy food through influencing consumer preferences for healthy products.
On the other hand, I just can’t get past the “low price” strategy. I know healthy food access people will judge my stance on low prices, and they have a valid point: lower prices for healthy food mean that people can buy more of it. And I agree that low income people, in particular, can greatly benefit from lower prices. But Wal-Mart operates on small margins, and low prices mean that the suppliers (for produce, that would be farmers) will receive lower prices for their products.
I suggest the following instead: income transfers to low income people (ie more federal nutrition benefits) so they can afford more food. For the rest of us, maybe we should pay a higher share of our income for food, say 13 percent instead of roughly 10 percent? And since relative prices of healthy to unhealthy food drive consumer decisions, rather than absolute prices, why not increase the price of junk food, through a tax?
I know, I know. This is an economist’s fantasy of how the world could be improved (more specifically, a dream of this economist). But ultimately, I don’t want consumer health to be increased at the expense of farmer income. Any other suggestions?
How many times you have been confused with terms like serving size, calories, total fat when you lay your eyes upon food labels? But they are very important to know! If you are like 80 percent of the general public who have no idea what these terms are, you better pay close attention to this article.
One way in which some have sought to get around this problem is by minimising labour costs. Admittedly, this only works on a local level and is reliant on volunteer support, but the principle is that someone agrees to work a shift (say 4 hours a month) in return for a stake within the company and a discount on food bought from the store. In this way you can minimise costs on products, guarantee producers a fair price on their goods, and you give customers direct involvement in the kind of food that the company stocks.
I don’t believe that discerning between healthy foods and unhealthy foods is really found in the labels. There are already a lot of labels out there, many of which are unregulated, and do nothing but confuse most of us. That’s why I always prefer buying organic food directly from one of the local farmers in Toronto that I know very well. Even though the price is higher I can be sure that the product is of high quality and with no artifical additives.