Navigating the New Sugars Added Label Requirements

The FDA recently announced changes to the Nutrition Facts label, with more details about sugar. Starting in 2018[1], the FDA will require Nutrition Facts labels to distinguish between sugars found naturally in ingredients and sugars added, both in grams and a percentage of daily recommended value. The FDA is recommending […]

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The Pet Marketing Agency

 The Pet Marketing Agency The pet industry as recession-proof Dogs increasingly anthropomorphized within the family Nutraceuticals making (and will continue to make) serious inroads into the pet food industry Pets with social media accounts Pet food labels mirroring human food labels, typically six to 12 months behind Cat videos The above list […]

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Cookies and Noodles: Moment Marketing 101

During the power outage that halted Super Bowl XLVII, one tweet made a bright impression, becoming one of the most retweeted messages of all time. The tweet itself: “Power out? No problem.” It was accompanied by an image of a dimly lit Oreo and the caption “You can still dunk […]

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Moringa: Superfood (or Just Super)?

It seems that every few weeks, a little-known (often exotic) fruit or veggie is declared the next superfood. By moving so quickly from one proclaimed superfood to the next, we’re left to semi-seriously infer that the previous one failed to live up to its moniker and (innumerable) promises. This fact, however, […]

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Cookies and a Camera: a Brief Study in Ingredients Marketing

Our client IOI Loders Croklaan recently tasked us with the unveiling of their latest product, a line of colored and flavored shortenings called FuseRite™. Through solid communication and a strategic ingredients marketing plan, we established the following: Primary goals: Stress FuseRite’s versatility; clearly communicate that it makes the job of […]

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Pumpkin Spice Lattes: the Value of Forced Scarcity

Starbucks has been slinging (can you sling a latte?) its incredibly popular Pumpkin Spice Latte for around a decade. While they didn’t invent the spice combination, they’re at least partially responsible for the increased pumpkin-spicing of our drinks and desserts every fall for the past ten years. Drinks and desserts […]

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The Labels Behind Pet Nutrition Marketing

When it comes to food ingredient labels, consumers are savvier than ever, and those shelf-smarts have, over the last few years, begun extending to ingredient lists for our pets’ food, but all is not yet perfectly clear, even for the shrewdest of label readers. As with human nutrition, pet ingredient […]

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Meals Out of Mealworms, Snacks Out of Silkworms

I’ve been thinking about insects. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about eating them (or, so far, not eating them). Meat isn’t usually considered a luxury item in western culture, but prices are predicted to rise substantially in the next decade. If meat consumption grows concurrently in developing parts of the world, […]

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Sushi, Sour Food, and the New American Palate

When I first took a bite of sushi when I was four years old, or should I say, after my mother shoved it into my mouth, I knew it was my new favorite. Growing up, when asked about what my favorite food was, I always took secret delight in the […]

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Who Owns the Spicy Sauce?

Did you know that sriracha is a style of hot sauce, not a brand of sauce? Just like ketchup, sriracha can be manufactured by anyone. However, in the U.S. at least, when someone says sriracha (or rooster sauce for that matter), they’re talking about Huy Fong Food’s spicy elixir with […]

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Banner Ad? No Whey!

When’s the last time you clicked on a banner ad? Or felt anything but annoyed by one? After years of increasingly aggressive banners – flashing, expanding, even sneaking onscreen – we’ve started to train ourselves, when not actively despising them, to ignore them. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be […]

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MarketPlace Lends a Paw to Stray Rescue

Food is our primary passion at MarketPlace, of course, but it’s definitely not the start and end of our interests. Take pets, for instance. Whether they’re our own or others’, we love pets. MarketPlace is a second home to Silky Landau (our lovely black lab), and we generally play host […]

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