> That’s a mural I saw in the Frito-Lay headquarters in Plano, Texas. I was there! My pilgrimage to the pinnacle of potato chips!
Oh I think not... for that you would need to visit Nottingham, PA ;). https://www.herrs.com/visit-us/
An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
11–20 of 107 posts
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#12When I was in college, I had a roomate who interned at Frito Lay. We got a lot of "beta" samples of new stacks that weren't public - the amount of engineering that goes into making snacks on ultra high volume scale is insane. I tested a bunch of snacks and provided feedback - which goes back into the engineering iteration loop before the snack is perfected, optimized for cost and manufacturability. It was indeed fasc…
I know that these things are optimized like crazy, but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. Most of the processed food industry makes foods that I find sickly sweet or absurdly oily, among other issues. Soda for example. I wouldn't describe as a failing of the Coca-cola company the fact that I don't like coke. Everyone has preferences. I would describe as their utter failure the fa…
> but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me.
I'm sure they do. That's why they came out with the baked chips, hundreds of non-sugar diet drinks (e.g. slightly flavored 0 calorie water). We all eat. We all get addicted. They just need to find your poison and optimize it.
> I hope they're starting to learn their lesson.
As this article shows, they've got an entire industry to learning every possible lesson.
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know that these things are optimized like crazy, but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. Most of the processed food industry makes foods that I find sickly sweet or absurdly oily, among other issues. Soda for example. I wouldn't describe as a failing of the Coca-cola company the fact that I don't like coke. Everyone has preferences. I would describe as their utter failure the fa…
> but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. I'm sure they do. That's why they came out with the baked chips, hundreds of non-sugar diet drinks (e.g. slightly flavored 0 calorie water). We all eat. We all get addicted. They just need to find your poison and optimize it. > I hope they're starting to learn their lesson. As this article shows, they've got an entire industry to learning…
The slightly flavoured water is a very new development -- the la croix I mentioned. When I had it, I thought for once, they've finally found something I like. But why did it take so long?
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#14If you read the papers on palatants and food processes destined for animals, they'll increase consumption by 20, 30% easily. Check out this patent for a horse nugget, for example: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/63/5b/ef/5e6b6bd... So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.…
> So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations. Well, that's what you get when the economy's health is measured by broad and sweeping measures like GDP. In the current American economy, the fries company makes 20% more, the doctor treating the obese person eating too many fries or the surg…
How does socialized healthcare change food manuf incentives?
I do also wonder about where it makes sense to draw the line when it comes to nutrition policy. We all share finite healthcare resources, especially as it becomes more socialized.
I think at the very least it becomes even more obviously predatory for you to make money off peddling addictive junk food to the masses. I would start there when thinking of helpful policy. Though things get ethically questionable very quickly.
Might be more helpful to look into why 7/11 in Japan is full of so much healthy food compared to 7/11 in USA where you're lucky to find a shrink-wrapped apple, and what kind of cultural shift is needed to bring about that change. I feel like that difference summarizes why we are so screwed. We've lost the plot somewhere along the line.
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#15If you read the papers on palatants and food processes destined for animals, they'll increase consumption by 20, 30% easily. Check out this patent for a horse nugget, for example: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/63/5b/ef/5e6b6bd... So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.…
> So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations. Well, that's what you get when the economy's health is measured by broad and sweeping measures like GDP. In the current American economy, the fries company makes 20% more, the doctor treating the obese person eating too many fries or the surg…
I agree the government trying to optimize to increasing GDP is not great for society, but it does also optimize for maximum tax revenue increase, so I understand why its done.
I don't see any reason why one needs to socialize healthcare in order to regulate foodstuffs. Food manufacturers are going to make their foods stuffs addictive if people buy them more because of that, not whether a country has socialized medicine. One might even argue that people have less incentive to work on being healthy when their healthcare is paid by someone else.
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#16When I was in college, I had a roomate who interned at Frito Lay. We got a lot of "beta" samples of new stacks that weren't public - the amount of engineering that goes into making snacks on ultra high volume scale is insane. I tested a bunch of snacks and provided feedback - which goes back into the engineering iteration loop before the snack is perfected, optimized for cost and manufacturability. It was indeed fasc…
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Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#17When I was in college, I had a roomate who interned at Frito Lay. We got a lot of "beta" samples of new stacks that weren't public - the amount of engineering that goes into making snacks on ultra high volume scale is insane. I tested a bunch of snacks and provided feedback - which goes back into the engineering iteration loop before the snack is perfected, optimized for cost and manufacturability. It was indeed fasc…
I know that these things are optimized like crazy, but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. Most of the processed food industry makes foods that I find sickly sweet or absurdly oily, among other issues. Soda for example. I wouldn't describe as a failing of the Coca-cola company the fact that I don't like coke. Everyone has preferences. I would describe as their utter failure the fa…
I don't like Frito Lay snacks as much as I don't like local gourmet snacks made by some hipster company. They are both bad for you unless you moderate consumption.
That is orthagonal to the engineering that goes into making millions of chips a day. Just because I don't enjoy going on Royal Carribean cruises doesn't mean I shouldn't appreciate the logistical miracle that goes behind the scenes to make 12,000 meals a day. Nor does it diminish the engineering miracles that went into making this huge city in the middle of the ocean where you can hang out and have a martini while playing casino. Not my thing but amazing nevertheless.
Ever looked at Cigarette manufacturing line? I have. And it is insane! 10,000 cigarettes a minute. My jaw was on the floor. Deeply immoral business but I think that's orthagonal.
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#18If you read the papers on palatants and food processes destined for animals, they'll increase consumption by 20, 30% easily. Check out this patent for a horse nugget, for example: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/63/5b/ef/5e6b6bd... So if you take that and realize there's more money in palatants for humans than in animals, that'll explain an entire obesity epidemic entirely without any other explanations.…
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Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#19Food science is really interesting; I've kind of gotten into it as a hobby lately (having a background in chemical engineering and an obsessive interest in cooking). Last night I was making some melted cheese for nachos and used sodium citrate to emulsify the cheese sauce and sodium hexametaphosphate to sequester the calcium (weird aside: the non-numeric chemical formula for sodium citrate is NaCHO). It's fascinating to me how much work goes into this stuff. There are decades worth of research articles studying the effect of melting salts on cheese.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that processed foods don't taste dramatically better than restaurant food considering how much work goes into optimizing everything. I suppose a large part of this process is not strictly optimizing for flavor, but rather shelf life and cost among other factors. Although I do know a lot of Michelin star chefs will use whatever additives are necessary to make a dish taste as good as possible — at least if they don't have a strict focus on natural, locally sourced food.
Re: An industry dedicated to making foods crispy
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I often feel like the focus groups must just not include people like me. I'm sure they do. That's why they came out with the baked chips, hundreds of non-sugar diet drinks (e.g. slightly flavored 0 calorie water). We all eat. We all get addicted. They just need to find your poison and optimize it. > I hope they're starting to learn their lesson. As this article shows, they've got an entire industry to learning…
The slightly flavoured water is a very new development -- the la croix I mentioned. When I had it, I thought for once, they've finally found something I like. But why did it take so long?
La Croix was founded almost 40 years ago, I remember drinking it (not very enthusiastically) as a kid growing up in the 80s.