Why do even the most banal grocery staples have suggested recipes on them?

September 16, 2009 5:17 PM

Why do even the most banal grocery staples have suggested recipes on them? Even things like sugar, salt, butter, etc. always seem to have a 'suggested recipe' printed on it. Is this just lack of anything else to fill the space, or might there be some law/taxation-status issue?
posted by dmd to Food & Drink (27 answers total)

First off, most staples are made by giant conglomerates. Ever wondered why they'll recommend a specific brand of chocolate chips to go with that flour? So, you've got cross-promotion. Secondly, a lot of banal staples still sponsor advertisements and contests involving their products, and generally one of the prizes in the contests is for your recipe to appear on the packaging. Third, even beyond that, suggesting a specific use for, say, butter, that you haven't thought of is going to make you use more butter when you try that new recipe plus the regular cooking you were buying the butter for. Finally, a lot of the larger concerns will have test kitchens to make sure that the quality of their ingredients remains consistent, which means making a lot of food. If you're already creating recipes and testing them, why not publish them if it comes with all the benefits I mentioned above?
posted by klangklangston at 5:22 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

BTW, those are some excellent recipes.

Chocolate chips may be a staple, but that's where you get the Tolllhouse Cookie recipe.
posted by SLC Mom at 5:29 PM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Some of those recipes are quite toothsome. Check out the Tollhouse on Nestle chocolate chips.
posted by I'm Brian and so's my wife! at 5:30 PM on September 16, 2009

So you work in the marketing department and your product is a bunch of frickin' sticks of plain old ordinary butter. If you don't do something to market your product, you get fired, and nobody wants that. So what do you do? You busy yourself with recipes to put on the box, because now you've at least done something you can point to come performance evaluation time.
posted by zachlipton at 5:47 PM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

Because people love those recipes- the Green Bean casserole, the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies, the Quaker Oatmeal Raisin cookies. I'm sure people would scream bloody murder if the recipes went away.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:51 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

They want you to use those banal staples because the theory is you'll then buy more.
posted by moonshine at 5:54 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I suspect part of it is also to get the customer visualizing the tasty dishes that s/he could be making with that as opposed to another product.
posted by proj at 5:54 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, using the ingredient in the recipe often uses A LOT of that ingredient. For example, if you want to make rice krispy treats, you need to use an entire box of cereal right there. That means that the product goes a lot faster than just eating a bowl or two for breakfast.
posted by zpousman at 5:54 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

The butter cookies on the Land O Lakes box...the cheesecake on the Philly Creamcheese box...the peanut butter cookies on the Jif jar...like everyone else said, they're tried and true. And if you want to make any of those recipes, having the recipes so conveniently packaged with the main ingredient will seem like you can't make them with any other brand.
posted by contessa at 6:14 PM on September 16, 2009

Nth 'quite toothsome.' They are there so you use up the product, and then require more of the product to make that delightful dish again.

They are generally so reliable that when I want an egg recipe I check egg marketing board web sites &c...
posted by kmennie at 6:48 PM on September 16, 2009

That means that the product goes a lot faster than just eating a bowl or two for breakfast.

Bzzt. When you make rice crispy treats (or chocolate chip cookies, or pecan bars, or what have you), you're generally looking to make a certain, sort of standard number at once, and the package sizes and reverse-side recipes accomodate this idea. When it's time to make the rice crispy treats for the school potluck, you march yourself over to the store and grab the box of rice crispies that has the recipe conveniently printed on the back. That's all you plan to use it for, so the recipe being included is a nice bonus. It also lets you see what other ingredients you need to pick up before you leave the store. "Right, I need a pound of marshmallows."

Further evidence against the "move product faster" theory is that you do need the whole box at once. You can't really eat a bowl a day for a week and then decide "oh, I think I'll make a pan of treats out of this," unless you tweak the recipe a bit. You buy the box for the purpose. You find this pattern with a number of such recipes that are centered on a single ingredient (chocolate chips, peanut butter, brownies, pecans, coconut, tapioca, etc). It's convenient for some who don't own a lot of cookbooks, and also helps the product sell because the "famous" recipe is printed right on the package.
posted by Maximian at 7:03 PM on September 16, 2009

Er, not brownies, I meant "baking chocolate". I swear I previewed.
posted by Maximian at 7:04 PM on September 16, 2009

And for frazzled mums who have made dinner every night for years and who's enthusiasm for cooking has died, it's great to have something new and usually very easy to make right there in your hand.
posted by x46 at 7:18 PM on September 16, 2009

I don't disagree with anyone above, but my favorite recipe on a staple has to be on Morton Kosher Salt. It's a salt-crusted beef something or another that calls for the whole one pound box. I've never made it, but using a box of salt is impressive. So, the answer is marketing/filling space and not any legal/tax reason (in the US at least). Since a lot of staple packages don't have recipes.
posted by skynxnex at 7:31 PM on September 16, 2009

I suspect they're on the packaging because a lot of people buy those "staples" in order to do those recipes. E.g., people buy chocolate bits in order to make chocolate chip cookies, or those Campbells fried onion things to make green bean casserole. Many people who don't cook frequently don't have recipe files, so having the recipe right there on the package is very helpful. I suspect that the manufacturers might have serious customer-satisfaction issues if they suddenly removed those recipes (people might go on the Internet, come up with some random recipe that they don't like as much, and blame the product for the poor result).

Once you put a recipe that gets popular on the packaging of a product, I'd imagine it becomes difficult to remove.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:31 PM on September 16, 2009

I have bought specific brands of food in the past just because I knew the recipe I wanted was printed on the box.
posted by grouse at 7:54 PM on September 16, 2009 [2 favorites]

I have bought specific brands of food in the past just because I knew the recipe I wanted was printed on the box.

My family makes the very best pecan pie; everybody asks for it. So I asked my mother, "What's the recipe for that?"

"Oh, the one printed on the dark Karo syrup."

If they stopped printing that, I wouldn't buy that particular bottle of syrup.
posted by Netzapper at 8:23 PM on September 16, 2009

skynxnex: It's a salt-crusted beef something or another that calls for the whole one pound box.

It's actually a three pound box of kosher salt.

Maximian: Further evidence against the "move product faster" theory is that you do need the whole box at once.

In the case of the 3-lb box of Morton's kosher salt, I'm not sure that this is evidence against the "move product faster" theory. If Morton's could make this recipe as popular as the Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie or the Campbell's three soup casserole, just imagine how much more salt they could sell.
posted by mhum at 8:29 PM on September 16, 2009

My girlfriend works in an advertising and marketing company and most of their clients are in food service.

Like the sugar industry, the rice industry, etc...

She says that the reason they all have recipes on the box is the people in charge of these types of things at their companies feel that no one will buy their products if there aren't recipes on them.
Seriously, you, the dumb consumer, won't know what to do with rice if there isn't a recipe on it.

They even request for these recipes to be put on HUGE quantity products that mostly only chefs buy.
posted by zephyr_words at 8:40 PM on September 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

Some grocery stores have issues about stick a coupon on the package. So what else would we put there? Text or copy, maybe, but we can TELL that story with a delicious and reusable recipe. Send it your friends kind of thing. It's good word of mouth on what would otherwise be empty space.
posted by GilloD at 9:06 PM on September 16, 2009

Seriously, you, the dumb consumer, won't know what to do with rice if there isn't a recipe on it.

Yes, there are people who don't know how to cook rice. Probably many of them, actually. And others who have done it only with a recipe. Feel free to look down your nose at them, but it seems the manufacturers know which side their bread is buttered on (or their rice, I suppose).
posted by grouse at 9:12 PM on September 16, 2009

Umm, grouse, I'm by no means a cook and I think you took my post the wrong way.
I think the information I gave was helpful and I don't really feel like defending a side comment but...

I'm stating the box says things like, eat rice with chicken, eat rice with rice, blah blah. So if there wasn't a recipe on the box you wouldn't know what to use the rice with or just eat the rice plain.
Not a step by step instructional of how to cook the rice. I think that's useful and helpful on all products. I'd probably be lost on condensed soup without the little instructional.
posted by zephyr_words at 9:53 PM on September 16, 2009

I don't disagree with anyone above, but my favorite recipe on a staple has to be on Morton Kosher Salt. It's a salt-crusted beef something or another that calls for the whole one pound box. I've never made it, but using a box of salt is impressive.

I've made this recipe before. It is a glorious thing. It does indeed call for the entire box of salt, and I needed a small hammer to break the crust when it was done. However, it made some of the best beef I have ever had. (And now I'm hungry. I think I know what I'm making this weekend!)
posted by spinifex23 at 9:57 PM on September 16, 2009

So if there wasn't a recipe on the box you wouldn't know what to use the rice with or just eat the rice plain.

This is a bit myopic. Most people who buy rice are not going to use a fancy recipe on the container. But some will. There are many reasons why this is a helpful thing to the manufacturer listed above. Insulting the intelligence of the consumer is not one of them, and is not necessary.
posted by grouse at 10:18 PM on September 16, 2009

I always thought it was so consumers didn't feel intimidated or wasteful buying a large amount of Product X. If I buy a kilo of sugar for my cake, I can use the recipe on the side of the packet to use up the rest of the sugar, right?

[Not living in America, I am unaware of the wonderfulness of these seemingly well-known recipes. Although I am sure I've heard of Tollhouse cookies before.]
posted by chronic sublime at 1:31 AM on September 17, 2009

Better than what gets printed on the packages, are the recipes you get mailed to you, just for the asking. I once had lost a recipe for brownies I liked, that used Hershey's syrup. I called Hershey, and they sent me a booklet full of interesting things, after giving me the help I needed. (or maybe it was because I needed to know how big 'one can' was, when I could only get the plastic bottle).

True but funny: I came down craving pineapple upsidedown cake one time. I could not find a recipe anywhere (these stories are from the pre-interenet days, I like to call the 'dark ages'). Then I chanced to discover it was printed on the box of Domino brown sugar.

I've learned to save the important recipes from packages, and they fall out of my personal cook book whenever I get it out. Now I'm hungry.
posted by Goofyy at 6:20 AM on September 17, 2009

I have bought specific brands of food in the past just because I knew the recipe I wanted was printed on the box.

Same here. At one point I went to college in a small crappy town with nothing to do besides sit in the woods or drive an hour to find some sort of entertainment. One time, sitting around with some friends bored out of our mind, I came up with the idea of baking cookies and handing them out in the dorm. We drove down the the grocery story, grabbed a bag of Nestle chocolate chips for the Tollhouse cookie recipe, got all the other ingredients we needed, and ate about 3/4 of the dough before it was baked.
posted by arcolz at 12:36 PM on September 17, 2009