ProNutro has been in the news lately because consumers have been protesting against its taste, sweetness, texture, and a formulation that in no way whatsoever resembles the original. But there have been plenty of other food and beverage failures over the years. Behind many of them sit the famous taste tests.
Taste tests are clearly not the foolproof way companies believe they are when it comes to validating whether consumers will actually accept a product. Of course, companies keep running them, and some work perfectly well; otherwise, consumers would never see new products entering the market. But when they fail, they fail spectacularly.
Just look at some of the bigger flops. ProNutro is one. New Coke is another. We’ve also seen this play out globally with Coca-Cola Life in the UK, where the stevia-sweetened aftertaste simply couldn’t survive the “real world” test. New Coke famously performed well in blind taste tests but was rejected once ordinary people had to live with it beyond a few laboratory sips.
And that is often where manufacturers get it wrong. They rely on what are known as “sip tests.” A single sweet gulp may taste pleasant enough, but drinking or eating a full serving is another matter entirely. Something can quickly become cloying, artificial, or downright unpleasant. Then there is the issue of mouthfeel. If a product like ProNutro loses its texture, consistency, or mixability, then all the chemistry in the world is irrelevant. The consumer experience is already dead on arrival.
You can analyse failed taste tests scientifically and come up with all sorts of technical explanations, but there is also a very human problem involved.
Years ago, I was involved in factory taste tests among marketing staff and others. Some of the products were actually excellent and, strangely enough, never even made it to market. Because the information was proprietary, I’ve never discussed the details publicly. But I can certainly talk about the human dynamics involved in these and similar situations.
First of all, many taste tests involve paid testers. Then there are the marketing people and corporate staff floating around the room. Quite a few of them are basically sycophants. They spend their time brown-nosing management and are terrified of saying the wrong thing. If you criticise a product too harshly, everyone suddenly turns and stares at you. As the saying goes, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered the most.”
That is unfortunately the culture in many large corporates and manufacturing environments. Employees learn very quickly to toe the line and become “yes men” and “yes women.” Management asks for honest feedback, but many people are far too frightened to give it because they know there can be consequences. Ostracism. Marginalisation. Sometimes even quietly being pushed out the door over time.
That is how ruthless corporate environments can become. Leaders often say they want honesty, but what they really want is agreement. The moment somebody offers a contrary opinion or points out an obvious problem, that person suddenly becomes “difficult.”
And if you think this is exaggerated, just look at how brutal business can be in South Africa. Think of how a major supermarket chain recently treated a long-standing supplier of many decades. Stories like that are reminders that business is not some warm motivational seminar about teamwork and synergy. It is often cutthroat and deeply mercenary.
People were telling me yesterday about other businesses, and one story in particular struck me. I won’t mention the industry involved, but the behaviour sounded extremely mercenary. Then again, this sort of thing has always existed. Years ago — and it probably still happens now — antique dealers would go into townships where families had been given old furniture discarded by farmers upgrading their homes. Much of that furniture later turned out to be valuable antiques. Dealers would buy it for next to nothing from poor families, restore it, and then resell it for many times the price.
That same mentality exists all over business.
Just look at the furniture credit industry. Someone who once worked in advertising for one of these stores told me how they constantly created “specials” and promotions designed to keep customers permanently trapped in debt. Birthday specials. Upgrade specials. Endless offers. Once they secured a customer, the goal was to keep extracting more money month after month for as long as possible. It was financial vampirism dressed up as customer service.
But the real story this week is that consumers can’t be treated as cumbergrounds. They are not useless idiots — they can taste the difference between a product they would enjoy and one that is repulsive. Yes, a lot of emotion and psychology goes into it, but it’s the consumer who ultimately decides the fate of any product’s taste, not the so-called “lab rat” test results.
