Choice and the Ice Cream Tub

The economic news hasn’t been so good lately. It seems the American consumer is finally not responding to the urgent cries to spend, spend, spend. Chuck used to say that it’s impossible to spend oneself rich. He was referring specifically to me when I’d come home with my “bargains” from the sales. But he was right. Only the government benefits when we spend. They get the taxes, we get the bill. Yet only by spending do we keep the multiple and overlapping businesses that support our supposed need for “choice.”

I was reminded of this the other day when I went to the supermarket to buy ice cream. I found myself confronted by a freezer case of choice that stretched from the front of the store to the rear. It’s not a small store, so you get the idea.

Walking down the freezer cases was like watching a procession of precedence. First came the big boys. The Ben and Jerry’s and the company with the nonsensical name of Haagen Daas. These gourmet ice creams justify their cost by butter fat, fancy names for the flavors, and a hovering air of exclusivity. They are competing not only with each other but with the 38 flavors of Baskin Robbins.

Then came the middle brands, things like Meadowgold and Breyers. Their marketing strategy is basically the same. They have the same basic flavors (bland) and try to differentiate themselves in one of the two ways. They either try to underprice one another or second guess America’s current dietary preoccupations be they for light, fat-free, or even for sorbet or frozen yogurt. In the case of the latter, it's to the point that I can't predict whether something will be there the next time I go in. Sid says that one way to know if something's working is that the next time you look for it, it's been changed. It's also the mark of something that's not working. Innovation rules.
The result of all this "choice" and innovation is a conglomeration of brands with little to choose between them except for the huge difference between the full cream brands and the ones that imply we can enjoy the product without paying for it in calories. This is a case where the idea of choice has gone mad--at least I think so.

I know I could be writing about almost any other product and I know that the principle of competition is supposed to hold prices down. But how many brands of anything do we need? Especially when some of those brands are made in some central place out of state and come laden with preservatives so they don't harden, dry out, thicken, or go stale before they reach our supermarket shelves? Someone once told me that they use the same preservatives for food as they do to embalm bodies. To be very British, that proper put the wind up me.

I suppose that I’m remembering Forte’s Café on the Hove Seafront. We had the choice of vanilla, vanilla with fruit, and strawberry. The ice cream was great. I’m not at all sure that having ice cream in the flavors of mango fruitie-tootie, latte frappaccino, and walnut parfait, has made my life richer. The older I get, in fact, the less I am entraced with choice.

I imagine that all these ice cream producers may become victims of America’s slow down in spending. Ice cream is, after all, somewhat expendable. If that’s the case, I look forward to not going in to the supermarket and feeling like a predator looking at a school of fish when I go down the ice cream section.