Some facts: Diet coke has overtaken rival Pepsi to become the second most popular soft drink in US with Coke retaining the number one spot. Subway has become the largest restaurant chain dethroning McDonald’s with 34,225 restaurants worldwide compared to 32,737 for McDonald's. Now the question is to find out the common thread running between these two which is also an indicator of a change taking place in the food and beverages industry. Answer: It is the fact that both Diet coke and Subway are targeted towards health conscious people. Mind you this is the same category of people which was considered a niche some years ago and now they are in majority.
Hats off to these companies especially Subway which foresaw the trend at a time when not many realized it that health is actually wealth. McDonald's is of course popular worldwide, but not for serving the kind of food that Subway specializes in (McDonald's still ahead of Subway when it comes to revenue though the growth of subway confirms the increasing demand for healthy food). Of late McDonald’s has become proactive on this front with products containing fewer calories and fat (I just loved the print ad that it came out with in Israel when it launched some new products there. The ad featured only four square boxes with each one of them indicating sizes i.e. first one had "XL" printed on it, second one had "L" written on it, fourth one had "S" written on it, the third box had McDonald’s "M" printed on it indicating medium calories and fat).This trend is quite visible in India as well with growing popularity of subway sandwiches, probiotic ice-cream and increasing usage of sugar free.
One reason why I feel these products are selling more is because the people who play the role of "influencer" in the buying process are promoting them big time. The other day, I just heard one pregnant lady saying that doctor has advised her not to eat outside and if she does eat out at times then it has to be subway for health reasons! It will be interesting to see how things shape up in future. I am just waiting for a healthy "vada pav" now!
Hats off to these companies especially Subway which foresaw the trend at a time when not many realized it that health is actually wealth. McDonald's is of course popular worldwide, but not for serving the kind of food that Subway specializes in (McDonald's still ahead of Subway when it comes to revenue though the growth of subway confirms the increasing demand for healthy food). Of late McDonald’s has become proactive on this front with products containing fewer calories and fat (I just loved the print ad that it came out with in Israel when it launched some new products there. The ad featured only four square boxes with each one of them indicating sizes i.e. first one had "XL" printed on it, second one had "L" written on it, fourth one had "S" written on it, the third box had McDonald’s "M" printed on it indicating medium calories and fat).This trend is quite visible in India as well with growing popularity of subway sandwiches, probiotic ice-cream and increasing usage of sugar free.
One reason why I feel these products are selling more is because the people who play the role of "influencer" in the buying process are promoting them big time. The other day, I just heard one pregnant lady saying that doctor has advised her not to eat outside and if she does eat out at times then it has to be subway for health reasons! It will be interesting to see how things shape up in future. I am just waiting for a healthy "vada pav" now!
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