Publications
Publications
- 5 Sep 2013
The Color of Taste: Selling Food in Clear Packages in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States
By: Ai Hisano
Abstract
This paper examines the role of color in the marketing and retailing of food products by focusing on the increasingly popular presentation of food in clear packages in the early-twentieth-century United States. In the 1910s, a candy company began using cellophane to package their products. During the following decades when an American chemical company, Du Pont, introduced moisture-proof cellophane, the packaging material became popular among many food manufacturers. Clear packages ostensibly showed consumers the inside of the package. Yet transparency did not necessarily mean that consumers could better understand food quality. At a super market where meat had been already cut and bread packaged and where consumers rarely had a chance to actually eat, smell, or touch pre-packaged food products, they needed to rely mostly on visual information, especially color, in selecting food. Moreover, with the industrialization and commercialization of food and the expansion of the national market, controlling and standardizing the color of agricultural products, as well as processed foods, became essential for the food business.
By exploring the use of cellophane packaging, this paper analyzes how producers manipulated food color to meet consumer expectations and how consumers developed their perceptions of naturalness and freshness. In doing so, I aim to show the formation and transformation of a dominant worldview concerning food, nature, and society in the United States. The color of food cannot be understood solely as an indicator of abundant variations or consumer choices. Food, specifically its appearance, held a different role than other consumer products for which color was a crucial element of brand identity and variety. Food color was a visual communication that not only appealed to the eyes of consumers but also stimulated gustatory, olfactory, and tactile sensation. Color conveyed sensory knowledge that consumers understood, and helped them imagine the taste, smell, and texture of a product. Due to changes in retailing and purchasing patterns, including the expansion of self-service stores, consumers learned to discern the various traits of food by looking at its appearance. Color became a barometer for consumers to evaluate the product quality and a set of cultural norms, determining the acceptability of food.
Keywords
Citation
Hisano, Ai. "The Color of Taste: Selling Food in Clear Packages in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States." Paper presented at the CHORD Conference, Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD), Leeds, UK, September 5, 2013.