Taco Bell goes retro with “Where’s the beef?” defense

Want to know when you’ve lost the PR battle? When you get headlines like this:

Taco Bell Defends Beef, Calls Suit ‘Bogus’

Taco Bell’s real problem is that this lawsuit doesn’t sound that outlandish. It just confirms a lot of people’s secret suspicions – whether true or not. Taco Bell’s brand promise is cheap, pseudo-Mexican-themed food. Nobody looks at them and thinks, “Good food.” They think, “Inexpensive, filling and no I don’t really want to know what’s in it.” Even the company’s defense plays into this. Chihuahua HQ has put out a press release saying,

Our seasoned beef recipe contains 88% quality USDA-inspected beef and 12% seasonings, spices, water and other ingredients that provide taste, texture and moisture.

“88% of our meat is actually meat. No, really.” You’re not going to win a lot of hearts and minds with that one guys.

What the company needs to do is go with this instead of fighting it. How about an ad campaign with a Lenten theme – “Taco Bell, perfect for meatless Fridays.” Or, “Taco Bell – Fast food for vegetarians.”

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Three cheers for denial! Whole Foods says sale of live lobsters is “inhumane”

Who exactly is it inhuman to? I think the actual answer is it made some of the uber-crunchy customers squeamish. So let me get this right … it's OK to sell meat, pork, fowl and fish (and probably lobsters) that are killed off premises but not something that's alive when it gets to the store? I think you should have to see the slaughter of all your food before you consume it. Great quote:

The Austin-based grocer spent seven months studying the sale of live lobsters from ship to supermarket aisle, trying to determine whether the creatures suffer along the way.

You know your company has too much money when…

Study suggests cakes are made of meat

Quoth Reuters: “If you want to keep the weight down, switch to a meat-free diet.” Speaking as a vegetarian: it wasn’t the burgers that added to my buns. FYI, the details: Scientist who studied the eating habits of 22,000 people over five years, including meat eaters and vegetarians, found they all put on a few kilos but meat eaters who changed to a vegetarian or vegan diet gained the least.