No. The science of selling anything is the science of figuring out what the customer wants and providing it. Anybody trying to sell food, ANY food, is trying to trigger the pleasure center of the brain. Even health food is trying to taste good, they’re still trying to make your body THINK it’s getting that fat/sweet/savory hit that it desires. If anybody is playing the addiction game it’s the health food guys, because they’re actually trying to fool your body, they’re trying to hit those pleasure centers without actually providing what your body craves.
My only problem with Lunchables is they’re overpriced. I can put together a better tasting meat, cheese, cracker combo for cheaper, made worse because at my normal grocery store the Lunchables are facing the deli counter with all the Boar’s Head. I moved away from Pop Tarts when they moved away from the unfrosted, you can’t butter a Pop Tart with frosting, there’s no place for the butter to sink into.
They aren’t trying to entice addicts. They’re trying to compete. Everybody knows what people want to eat, you can provide it or you can’t. If you don’t, your product will fail, and the company will fail. We see this over and over when McD tries to provide “healthy options”, their attempts always fail in the market, nobody goes to McD for a salad. And as you look at the failure of many healthy franchises you can see people don’t even go to salad place for a salad. Really as far as triggering pleasure centers are concerned there’s no difference between junk food and gourmet, they’re both trying to make the consumer say “that tasted good and I want to eat it again soon”. We just don’t have a problem with $50 a plate places doing it, we only complain when it’s $5 a bag places. The chemistry is the same, the business model is the same, the only difference is the price and how much people whine.
I’d rather work for a company that provides the customers what they want. Those jobs last longer.
The junk food business is all about creating junk food addicts, many of them children. Then to design the food (as covered in the original NYTimes article) so they are repeat buyers. Zombie buyers. Buyers (the stupid and the weak willed) compelled to buy type X junk food that satisfies the cravings (low level addictions) created by the junk food pushers.