I’ve been rambling around Portugal for the past week and a half, and an interesting research question has come up.
The other night, the ketchup that appeared on our dinner table with our french fries (I know, I know, but fried potatoes are part of the territory when traveling while vegetarian) was called Calvé. After splurting some of it onto my plate, I idly started examining the label, and I noticed something interesting. One line in the fine print said, “Una marca de Unilever” (A brand of Unilever).
Why on earth, I wondered, would a maker of ketchup want the world to know that it is owned by such a huge corporation? Or was it compelled to disclose that fact? Perhaps there was some EU regulation behind it? After all, Europe has been more on the ball than the U.S. about GMO labeling issues.
I asked a Portuguese friend about it, and he said there is no such rule and it must have been voluntary; most likely the ketchup distributor thought Unilever’s presence on the label would be a badge of honor, a sign that the product is trustworthy.
Which is funny to me, because I’ve always been irked by the fact that product labels pretty much never address corporate parentage. I remember feeling distinctly deceived many years ago when I found out that Plank Road Brewery, which makes Red Dog beer, was actually Miller Brewing Company. The Calvé-Unilever label embodies a fantasy I’ve long had in which labels disclose their ultimate maker—albeit in the fine print. And really, why shouldn’t they? After all, food items are required to list their ingredients on a nutrition label. Don´t we have a right to know who’s receiving the money we’re forking out for any product, edible or no?
