Consumers, says Malachy McReynolds, are sick of being treated like morons. "They know, when they pick up a chocolate bar, that it's a treat, an indulgence," he says. "And they resent being treated like idiots." Needless, to say, the new president of the BCCCA is not entirely convinced that a front-of-pack 'signposting' system will prove a key weapon in the fight against obesity. Slapping a red sticker on a Mars bar, adds McReynolds, who led a management buyout team to take over chocolate maker Elizabeth Shaw five years ago, is "hardly the most sophisticated form of consumer education". Politicians, points out McReynolds, who has since dragged his ailing chocolate company from the red firmly back into the black, did not put salads on to the menu at McDonalds or turn Diet Coke into a bigger seller than the standard variety. "Consumers did. Telling people what to eat is not the answer." And neither is blaming the country's chocolate and cake makers for the nation's expanding waistline, he suggests.
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