Panera’s ‘Clean Eating’ Campaign Gets Roasted For Its Scientific Ignorance

Panera has been claiming to offer ‘clean food’, despite their campaign lacking any sort of grasp of basic science, for years now. But their latest attempt has not only backfired on Twitter, but underscored just how committed the chain seems to be to emphasizing scare marketing over science.

The tweet in question claims that sodium benozate, because it’s found in fireworks, shouldn’t be in food:

Twitter users, as Eater reported, quickly swarmed the company with two important points. One, sodium benzoate is not just a common preservative, naturally occurring in certain fruits, with strict limits imposed by federal law, it’s a common medication. Secondly, you can find a lot of other chemicals in fireworks, like sugar, iron, calcium and, uh, oxygen. In other words, it was a profoundly dumb tweet. The problem, though, is that Panera doesn’t seem to care.

It’s true that we need to better understand what we’re eating. In fact it’s fair to argue it’s one of the most urgent public health concerns. As we argue about availability of food and what direction the national diet should take, informed decisions are going to become more and more important. But, as we’ve noted before, information is useless without context, and that can breed fear. It’s not enough to tell somebody “You can find this chemical in your food, and also in something you wouldn’t eat in a million years.” You have to explain exactly why it shouldn’t be in food in the first place.

https://twitter.com/rebelrhyming/status/888662576866902016

Of course, that often conflicts with corporate messaging. It’s easy to remove high-fructose corn syrup, for example, but we doubt Panera will excitedly inform you that state health bodies are recommending you cut back on the refined sugar regardless of the form it takes, including Panera’s cakes and cookies. We doubt Panera is going to stop carrying its steak sandwiches either, despite the mounting evidence that you probably should cut back on the red meat.

There’s nothing wrong with educating customers, but it has to be done in a way that benefits customers instead of scaring them.

https://twitter.com/upulie/status/888659503025082368