"carrots" news and stories

Last year, we told you that carrots companies were using junk-food marketing techniques to gain a foothold in the snack market. Now Fast Company has the whole story behind the meteoric rise of baby carrots.

Here are the Cliff Notes: About 10 years ago, somebody tried to figure out what to do with the leftovers that resulted from supermarkets insisting that carrots all be a uniform size. Baby carrots were invented, and they become more popular than the real thing. But when the recession hit, people went back to regular carrots because they were perceived as less of a luxury item.
Oh, dear, what to do?

Spend $25 million to hire the famously creative (and often controversial) ad agency of Crispin Porter + Bogusky (the agency behind Burger King's Delete 10 Friends and Get a Free Whopper campaign) to convince America that, far from being healthy, carrots were the ideal junk food (hey, they're already orange, the same color as Orange Doodles). The idea was to package them like Cheetos and pretzels, in snack-like bags, and to stick them into vending machines (see "like Cheetos and pretzels"). So far, sales are way up -- turns out we're all a slave to marketing. But in this case, that's a good thing.

Read the whole story at Fast Company.

Would you accept a little bag of baby carrots as a substitute for, say, a mini Snickers bar in your Halloween trick-or-treat sack? Neither would we. We love carrots; really, we do, but the "Eat 'Em LIke Junk Food" campaign and now the "Scarrots" trick-or-treat gambit is pushing it. The editors at Eatocracy give us the skinny on what's hot and what's not for Halloween. A hint: candy corn is still Miss Popularity. Since, Americans will most likely spend $2 billion on candy this year (we kid you not), it's time to choose wisely. And then get some dental insurance.

• Latin-style franks teach old dogs some new tricks.
• The Turnberry Isle in Aventura, FL, uses very local food -- growing right in the resort's front yard.
• Ever heard of Scottish tablet? It's the sweet-tooth's sweet.
• If your baby carrots are ready to grow up a little, check out this gingery, buttery recipe.

Baby carrots are getting an extreme makeover.

It seems the only people who turn to the diminutive vegetable for their afternoon snack are guilt-ridden dieters and toddlers, but a $25 million re-branding campaign by a consortium of carrot growers is aiming to change that.

Forget the fact that carrots are good for you. Instead, the campaign appears to be focused on a crafty bit of marketing-based camouflage: if you put baby carrots in a snack-sized potato chip bag and give the bag the tricked-out POW! of, say, a bag of Doritos, can you convince people to "Eat 'Em Like Junk Food," as the new slogan says?

Of course, it doesn't take a Ph.D. in semantics to note the comparative simile there. "Like junk food" is a slightly hipper way of saying that they're not junk food. Yes, they're orange; yes, they're oblong; yes, they crunch -- but for better or for worse, they're no Cheetos.

As part of the campaign, carrot growers are also planning seasonal tie-ins (such as "scarrots" for Halloween), some weird-sounding phone app of people actually eating carrots, and TV commercials that, according to USA Today, "tout baby carrots as extreme, futuristic and even, yes, sexy."

Soup knows how to chill in August. You just have to give it half a chance. So for the next four days we're going to feature a few cold soups you may want to put in rotation when the garden is giving and the temperatures hit their peak.

Carrot and ginger are a good team, on the order of, say, Fred and Ginger, and this soup, from photographer bsmccoy and a recipe from Guy Fieri, spices it up with garlic, thyme and black pepper. But it also has a mellow side, with yogurt and honey. He uses a chicken or vegetable stock as a base, and a potato to give it more heft.

On the flip side, this Kitchen Daily recipe for chilled creamy carrot-ginger soup keeps it simple, made with little more than the two main components plus buttermilk, water and salt. Either way, you'll have the sunniest-looking soup around, the better to keep you cool.

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