Nabisco was bought in 2000 by Philip Morris, which was already a dominant player in the food industry thanks to its acquisitions of Kraft and General Foods in the 1980s. Schmidt at UCSF said that when Philip Morris bought General Foods in 1985, it installed tobacco executives at the food company and launched initiatives to market sugary drinks and processed foods to children and minorities.
To broaden the reach of its cigarettes, Philip Morris used a marketing strategy called “line extensions”: Marlboro cigarettes were marketed to men, Virginia Slims targeted women and menthol cigarettes were heavily advertised to Black consumers.
The company applied the same tactic to processed foods, Schmidt said. It added new flavors and formulas to many of its existing products, giving consumers an endless variety of hyper-palatable foods to buy.
Between 1986 and 2004, Philip Morris developed a dozen new products of liquid and frozen Kool-Aid and introduced around 36 child-tested flavors, including Kickin’ Kiwi Lime and Great Bluedini, which had its own cartoon mascot.
One of its best-selling products, Lunchables, was introduced in 1988 by Oscar Mayer. Designed to look like a TV dinner and marketed to busy moms and their children, the iconic, prepackaged meal of bologna, crackers and processed cheese contained so much sodium and saturated fat that some doctors called it a “blood pressure bomb.” One Philip Morris executive joked about references that the healthiest item in a package of Lunchables was the napkin.
