The Food Scout

In case you haven’t noticed, The Food Scout likes to talk about food trend-trumping the way the fashion industry one-ups its own trends: “Brown is the new black” or “Size 2 is the new size 6.” Recent Food Scout trend trumps have included “Smart: The New Deluxe,” “Free Food: The New 99-cent Menu,” and “Portion Control: The New Fat Free.” Now I’m wondering if 64 calories will become the new 100-calorie bar to beat, or just how low this calorie-limbo game will go before it fizzles out.

Several years ago, Subway cleverly established the appealing 6-grams-of-fat-or-less level for QSR sandwiches that quickly became the standard to meet or beat (“7 under 6” was the tagline). Interestingly, there was no nutrition organization that had set this bar as an ideal for healthy eating. But it SOUNDED reasonable, so people accepted it.

The same goes for the 100-calorie-pack portion-control phenomenon. Again, there is no widely accepted study or health authority that says snacking should be limited to 100 calories at a time. But 100 is a nice, neat number that SOUNDS low, so it’s proliferated from snack crackers and cookies, to snack cakes, candy, salty snacks, yogurt, energy bars, beef jerky, beverages, ice cream novelties — even bacon.

Then out of nowhere, a beer company no less, doesn’t hop on the 100-calorie bandwagon, but trumps that aging vehicle with its own souped-up sportscar, a 64 calorie “MGD 64” beer (which is currently in test only in Wisconsin, according to a “Brandweek” article highlighted in Bob Messenger’s “The Morning Cup.”)

Now, the 100-calorie trend would have been really easy for the beer industry to hop on (what have they been waiting for?). Budweiser’s various light beers have only 110 calories, so if Anheuser-Busch wanted to take a page from the ice cream and coffee industries (which have been shamelessly “shrinking” the standard half-gallons and pound-cans for years — see my “The Shrinking of the Food Supply” blog post), it would simply sell 11-ounce cans of beer to hit the mark without reformulation.

But Miller Light already beats the 100-calorie mark by 4 calories, so why the jump to 64 calories? I think it’s because, with all the light beers easily hovering around 100 calories already, Miller (who basically invented the light beer category in 1972) knew that, once their first 100-calorie beer bottle rolled off the line, the rest of the industry would hop that gimmick like white on rice. Instead, Miller Brewing Company may be earning itself some scarce competitive insulation by choosing the 64 number, which may be a yawner in the soda category, but is pretty good for beer, if the taste delivers. Interestingly, MGD 64 is a darker beer with a “fuller body.”

Evidently, Anheuser-Busch distributes a 64-calorie “Beck’s Premier Light” beer, but that name doesn’t (yet) take advantage of the calorie callout, and I doubt many people ever read beer nutrition labels unless they find themselves searching desperately for something to concentrate on at a party where they feel a bit shy (I can’t relate to this scenario, however).

So now, we’ll see whether the food industry takes Miller’s lead now that they’ve lowered the bar, and marked off a new number to play in the portion-control game.