Exotic Juices Free Radical Marketing

How about some exotic juices for some exotic pricing?

Snapple has Noni Berry from Polynesia, which is naturally bad-smelling with a nasty taste. But Snapple makes it with other juices to create a better taste.

Snapple does the same thing with Acai. I bought Snapple Acai but when I read the label there was barely any Acai there. Just other juices. Bossa Nova also has an Acai drink, but mixes it with raspberries.

Then there are drinks with yang-mei fruit from China, and Goji berries from Asia. None which taste particularly good.

And this started with pomegranate juice. When you drink POM straight (known as POM Wonderful), it doesn’t taste very wonderful at all. POM Tea tastes better, barely.

I think that what this really tastes like is money.

In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby tells his friend, Nick, that Daisy’s voice sounds like money. Surely that’s what these manufacturers must be hearing when they put these exotic juices into bottles. And why, do they do so?

Novelty, trendiness, jumping on the health bandwagon.

Why? To provide anti-oxidants that fight the free radicals. I wonder what the Weathermen and the Baader-Meinhof gang would think of this. Now those people were free radicals.

Antioxidants are substances that may protect your cells against the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food, or by environmental exposures like tobacco smoke and radiation. Free radicals can damage cells, and may play a role in heart disease, cancer and other diseases.

Do you get this from these juices? No. As a matter of fact, whatever vitamins or anti-oxidants there are in these juices passes through your body so fast few healthy ingredients ever escape the chutes and ladders of your digestion.

The biggest benefit is hydration from the water in the juice.

It can’t be the taste. And it can’t be the desire to throw good money after poor health.

There is no benefit here that you can’t get from eating nine fruits and vegetables a day.

Talk about SKU proliferation, even at a premium. This isn’t good marketing or good health. All those free radicals really do come at a cost to the marketer and the consumer.