Reprint: R0403A
The land of fried chicken and hush puppies likes its snacks steeped in fat, and Southland Baking Company has always been happy to oblige. Its Chizzlewits are crumbly, full of saturated fat, and delicious. As a result, Southland has a solid foothold in its market. Walk into any grocery store between Hagerstown, Maryland, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, and chances are you’ll find three or four Southland brands on the shelves.
But to Peter Schmidt, Southland’s vice president and general counsel, every day seems to bring more evidence that products like Chizzlewits are becoming the new tobacco. A New York lawyer has just sued a company like Southland for supposedly making his client fat. A House subcommittee is holding hearings on the fat content of baked goods. And Mothers Opposed to Obesity in Kids is lobbying for warning labels on all foods containing sugars and saturated fats.
Southland is trying to come up with a leaner version of Chizzlewits, but the results haven’t been encouraging. As Arthur, a little boy in a test group, says with a scowl after taking a bite and spitting it out: “It looks like a Chizzlewit, but it doesn’t taste like one!”
Should Peter tell his CEO that Southland needs to recast its product lines? Commenting on this fictional case study are Kenneth B. McClain, a trial lawyer based in Independence, Missouri; Laurian J. Unnevehr, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Pam Murtaugh, a consultant in Madison, Wisconsin; and Richard Berman, the executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom in Washington, DC.
