It's All in the Packaging

Going grocery shopping has always been something that I enjoyed to do. However, only recently have I started to pay attention to the actual products and how they are being sold. I mean, you can't blame me. It is so easy to just stroll into a store, particularly Whole Foods, and instantly become captivated by the plethora of fruits, vegetables, artisan soaps and snacks that they are selling. It was enough to distract me from actually considering why products are sold in the fashion that they are and how that indicates something about American culture.

The first question I had to answer was "What makes Whole Foods products so enticing?". I truly do not believe that I am the only one who finds Whole Foods somewhat more exciting than the conventional supermarket. But why? What I realized was that it has to do with how everything appears...how everything is packaged. First, I walk in and see an array of vibrant fruits and vegetables, perfectly stacked with signs reading "Oranges from Spain" or "Organic Strawberries". Then, moving further into the store, the consumer is bombarded by beautifully packaged breads and cartons of eggs, each with a heartfelt story that often takes the reader on a beautiful journey about how that item was produced. Are you beginning to see where I'm going here? It's not the actual food that is mesmerizing, it's the experience, the packaging and the aesthetics. 

The first time I had heard about this concept was while reading an excerpt from a book called The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Pollan spoke a lot about how grocery shopping has become more of a literary experience, where individuals choose items based more upon their connection to a product's "story" and its appearance, rather than just the type of food itself. While I was initially skeptical, the more I thought about this concept, the more I began to believe it. 

Whole Foods does really go out of its way to give customer's a great experience, from the overall appearance of the store to the little messages they put on their baked goods. It seems like customers, including myself, are beginning to pay more attention to the aesthetics rather than the actual products. While this is, in some ways, a somewhat cool shift, it also poses some serious concerns. For example, if we are becoming so mesmerized by the stories companies write about their food and getting caught up in this sort of fantasy, aren't we ignoring the realities of food production? What I mean is that even though there may be a beautifully written story on a milk carton about how happy the cow that produced the milk was or how nice the farm was, do we believe that? Companies are still often big businesses and will do whatever they want to make a sale. So those beautiful stories are often exaggerations of what is really going on. And how about meat? Meat-producing companies are becoming increasingly conscious of how they package and advertise their food...often to distract from the actual production of the meat that they are selling. It seems like sometimes, people will get so caught up in the advertising, that they forget about the realities of mass food production, which often include cruelty, huge factories, and messy slaughter. So, while it's often a refreshing experience to enjoy all the distractions Whole Foods has to offer (trust me, I love it!), it's also important for consumers to remember that the aesthetics and appearances are usually airbrushed.