Posted on 11/07/2010 1:07:44 PM PST by Lorianne
Domino's Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.
Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino's to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.
Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits.
But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino's, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day's maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.
And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture - the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discouragesover-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.
Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans' diets, primarily through cheese.
Dairy Management, whose annual budget approaches $140 million, is largely financed by a government-mandated fee on the dairy industry. But it also receives several million dollars a year from the Agriculture Department, which appoints some of its board members, approves its marketing campaigns and major contracts, and periodically reports to Congress on its work.
The Agriculture Department declined to make top officials available for interviews for this article, and Dairy Management would not comment. In answering written questions, the department said that dairy promotion was intended to bolster farmers and rural economies and that its oversight left Dairy Management's board with "significant independence" in deciding how best to support those interests.
(excerpted)
YES!
Oat bran!
Tofu!
Celery!
/sarc
domino’s needed the govt to tell it that adding more cheese might be a good idea?
Sorry, can’t live without cheeseburgers! And Happy Toys.
The white starch crust will kill ya before the cheese will...
Apparently so. They need millions of dollars spend on that advise as well.
Last I remember was Domino’s had the best tasting sauce/cheese/pepperoni covered cardboard I ever got sick on ....
Lower the price!
Savings: $20.8Bn
IF there’s one thing we need to be on Republicans about, it’s getting government out of our lives as much as possible.
Stop telling us what the eff to eat. Stop telling us what the eff NOT to eat. They get on our case and we’re not eating enough of X. Then we eat it, and then later they say stop eating X because you’re too effing fat and costing us money. Then they eff up the food pyramid.
The fact is they don’t know what the hell we should do. THey know less than we do about what we should do. Just shut the hell up government. Cut all these slackers from the pork payroll and let them earn an honest living in the private sector as nutritional consultants if they feel so driven to give people advice. At least those people would be seeking it out and paying for it with their own money.
Add this to the list of government subsidies to cut.
BTW, people will pay for what they want to eat anyway, and Dominoes certainly needed a makeover. But now that I realize the government is in partnership with Dominoes, I will never try their pies.
Taxpayer funds went to a $12 Million dollar marketing ad plan at Dominos?
Hey, their ad campaign is cute lately but I want my money back - with double meat and x-tra cheese...
Corporate welfare.
Tell me how needy a huge corporation is to get a taxpayer handout.
Cut out the FDA.
The USDA and the government need to get out of the business of trying to tell people what to eat.
Jim wrote,
Woo hoo!! Closing in on the finish line!! Less than $2,100 to go!!
Let's git er done!!
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Cheese is not a conspiracy. Cheese is good eats.
Defund!
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