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During December 2012, Jorge Paulo Lemann, a co-founder and partner at 3G, proposed to Warren Buffett that 3G and Berkshire Hathaway acquire H. J. Heinz Company. Lemann and Buffett, who had known each other for years, jointly decided that the Heinz turnaround had been successful and that there was significant potential for continued global growth. 3G informed Heinz CEO William Johnson that it and Berkshire Hathaway were interested in jointly acquiring his company. Johnson then presented the investors' offer of $70.00 per share of outstanding common stock to the Heinz board.

After much discussion, the Heinz board and its advisors informed 3G that without better financial terms they would not continue to discuss the possibility of an acquisition. Two days later, 3G and Berkshire Hathaway returned with a revised proposal of $72.50 per share, for a total transaction value of $28 billion (including Heinz's outstanding debt).

Following a forty-day “go-shop” period, Heinz, 3G, and Berkshire Hathaway agreed to sign the deal. But was this, in fact, a fair deal? And what might be the future consequences for shareholders, management, employees, and citizens of Pittsburgh, the location of the company's headquarters? Last, what was the role of activist investors in bringing Heinz to this deal stage?

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Understand the influence of investment bankers on M&A transactions

• Consider synergies that drive M&A

• Consider the role of activist investors in corporate strategic decision-making

• Understand the impact of M&A on key corporate stakeholders

• Apply core valuation techniques to support M&A valuation

Understand the influence of investment bankers on M&A transactions

Consider synergies that drive M&A

Consider the role of activist investors in corporate strategic decision-making

Understand the impact of M&A on key corporate stakeholders

Apply core valuation techniques to support M&A valuation

The chief executive of H.J. Heinz Company, in directing a far‐flung, decentralized corporation, challenges divisional officers to be creative and determined enough to meet the organization's demanding goals.

In 1986, H.J. Heinz are celebrating one hundred years of food manufacture in the UK. Looking back to their production and marketing of food in Britain over this period of time, it is easy to understand why this company has maintained its leading place in the nation's store cupboard

An iconic American brand must determine how to maximize net profit by increasing the sales of its highest-margin items in the face of constant retailer pushback including reduced shelf space and promotional support of those same products. This case is suitable for required MBA marketing courses as well as pricing and brand management electives at both the undergraduate and MBA levels. The analytics of the case assume that students can calculate both dollar and percentage margins.

Celebrating our 125th anniversary last year has caused a corporate‐wide sense of reflection. How has Heinz—now an $8 billion global food‐processing organization—prevailed? And, in the doing, what have we learned?

This paper aims to understand the motivations for product innovation and brand leadership using a series of case studies focusing on firms with leading market positions of different types.

A qualitative study is presented of three leading food sector firms of different types (large/public, medium/private, and international/cooperative). An analysis of brand leadership is undertaken in the context of a conceptual framework linking process innovation, product innovation, and the firm's resource base and market orientation.

The cases suggest that process innovation supports product innovation as firms implement strategies to differentiate their products. Response to changing demand is a disciplined reaction where firms exploit their specialized resources using superior product knowledge and branding power. Leadership positions are maintained not only by responding to changing demand but by steering the market using innovative products and consumer education.

This study suggests that firms use their unique resource base and form strategies to capitalize on their capabilities. A single, dominant orientation is not necessary to maintain leadership. Rather process innovation can facilitate product innovation leading to successful product differentiation and enhancing a leadership position. The question of whether the growing power of retailers means the demise for branded food manufacturers is one that deserves attention. Innovation and its motivation is a national public policy concern that is influenced by a myriad of regulations and laws administered by various agencies.

This study is the first one to pull together the experiences of food‐firm brand leaders with their branding and innovation strategies as they look to the global arena for growth.

The concept of “strategic niches” has guided the company to seek domestic as well as international acquisitions that fit its global game plan.

Purnima Bhaskar-Shrinivas is a doctoral student at the Department of Management and Organization, Pennsylvania State University. She received an MBA in Marketing from NMIMS, Bombay and a Masters in Management from the University of Bombay, India. Her research interests include cross-cultural work role adaptation, organizational change and artificial neural network modeling in organizational behavior. Her work has been presented at various conferences in management and psychology, including Academy of Management and SIOP. She also serves as a reviewer for the Organizational Development and Change (ODC) Division of the Academy of Management. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a management consultant at Accenture (erstwhile Andersen Consulting), India.Philip Bobko is Professor of Management and Psychology at Gettysburg College. His publications are in methodology, measurement, management, and industrial/organizational psychology. Content domains include test fairness, adverse impact, moderated regression analysis, validation methods, goal setting, decision making, utility analysis, and performance standard setting. He has also published a text on correlation and regression analysis (Sage), co-authored several handbook chapters in industrial/organizational psychology, and served as editor of Journal of Applied Psychology. His Ph.D. is from Cornell University and his B.S. is from MIT.Jacqueline A.-M. Coyle-Shapiro is a reader in Organizational Behavior in the Department of Industrial Relations at the London School of Economics where she received her Ph.D. Prior to this, she was a lecturer in Management Studies at the University of Oxford. She is a consulting editor for the Journal of Organizational Behavior and the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. She has served as guest editor for the Journal of Organizational Behavior with Lynn Shore on a special issue titled Employment Relationships: Exchanges between Employees and Employers. Her current research interests include the employment relationship, psychological contracts, organizational citizenship behavior, and organizational change. Her work has appeared in such journals as the Journal of Vocational Behavior, the Journal of Applied Behavioural Science and the Journal of Organizational Behavior. She has edited The Employment Relationship: Contextual and Psychological Perspectives published by Oxford University Press with Lynn Shore, Lois Tetrick and Susan Taylor.Jerald Greenberg is the Abramowitz Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. Professor Greenberg is co-author of one of the best-selling college texts on organizational behavior, Behavior in Organizations, which is in its third decade of publication. As a researcher, Dr. Greenberg is best known for his pioneering work on organizational justice. He has published extensively on this topic, with over 140 professional journal articles and books to his credit. Acknowledging his research contributions, Professor Greenberg has received numerous professional honors, including: a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship, and the William Owens Scholarly Contribution to Management Award. From the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management, Professor Greenberg has won the New Concept, and twice has won the Best Paper Award. Dr. Greenberg is co-author of the forthcoming volume, Organizational Justice: A Primer, and co-editor of Advances in Organizational Justice and the forthcoming Handbook of Organizational Justice. In recognition of his life-long scientific contributions, Dr. Greenberg has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the Academy of Management. Professor Greenberg is also past-chair of the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management.David A. Harrison is a Professor of Management at the Department of Management and Organization, Pennsylvania State University. He received an M.S. in applied statistics and a Ph.D. in I-O psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research on work role adjustment (especially absenteeism and turnover), time, executive decision making, and organizational measurement has appeared in Academy of Management Journal, Human Resource Management Review, Information Systems Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Strategic Management Journal, and elsewhere. He has served on the editorial board of Journal of Management, and currently serves on boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Organizational Research Methods, and Personnel Psychology, and will be editor of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.Violet T. Ho is an assistant Professor in Nanyang Business School at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). She earned her Ph.D. (2002) in organizational behavior and theory from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include social networks, psychological contracts, and the impact of employees’ cognitive structures on work performance and other outcomes. She has published in the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Information Systems Research, and was awarded the Best Paper Based on a Dissertation (2003) from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management.Robert C. Liden (Ph.D., University of Cincinnati) is Professor of Management at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research focuses on interpersonal processes as they relate to such topics as leadership, groups, career progression and employment interviews. He has over 50 publications in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Personnel Psychology. In 2000 he was inducted into the Academy of Management Journals’ Hall of Fame as a charter bronze member. He won awards (with co-authors) for the best article published in the Academy of Management Journal during 2001, as well as the best article published in Human Resource Management during 2001. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management since 1994 and the Academy of Management Journal from 1994 to 1999. He was the 1999 program chair for the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division, and was division chair in 2000–2001.Judi McLean Parks is the Reuben C. and Anne Carpenter Taylor Professor of Organizational Behavior at John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on conflict and conflict resolution, the “psychological contract” between employers and employees, the impact of perceived injustice as well as the effect of gender and ethnicity on perceived justice. Recently, she has begun to explore organizational identity and its relationship to conflict in organizations. She is editor of the International Journal of Conflict Management, former executive director of the International Association for Conflict Management, and former chair of the Academy of Management’s Conflict Management Division. Author of numerous articles and chapters, her research has been published in a variety of journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.Robert E. Ployhart is an associate Professor at George Mason University. His primary program of research focuses on understanding staffing within the context of forces shaping contemporary Human Resources (e.g. developing multi-level staffing models, enhancing the effectiveness and acceptability of recruitment and staffing procedures, identifying cultural/subgroup influences on staffing processes). His second program of research focuses on applied statistical/measurement models and research methods, such as structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling, and longitudinal modeling. He is an active member of both the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of Management, and serves on several editorial boards.Lyman W. Porter is Professor of Management in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine, and was formerly Dean of that School. Prior to joining UCI in 1967, he served on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, and, also, was a visiting professor at Yale University. Currently, he serves as a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Czechoslovak Management Center, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Armenia, and was formerly an external examiner for the National University of Singapore. Professor Porter is a past president of The Academy of Management. In 1983 received that organization’s “Scholarly Contributions to Management” Award, and in 1994 its “Distinguished Management Educator” Award. He also served as President of the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and in 1989 was the recipient of SIOP’s “Distinguished Scientific Contributions” Award. Professor Porter’s major fields of interest are organizational psychology, management, and management education. He is the author, or co-author, of 11 books and over 80 articles in these fields. His 1988 book (with Lawrence McKibbin), Management Education and Development (McGraw-Hill), reported the findings of a nation-wide study of business school education and post-degree management development.Belle Rose Ragins is a Professor of Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Research Director of the UWM Institute for Diversity Education and Leadership. She studies diversity and mentoring in organizations, and her work has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Applied Psychology and Psychological Bulletin. She is co-author of the book Mentoring and diversity: An international perspective. Dr. Ragins has received eight national research awards, including the Sage Award for Scholarly Contributions to Management, the ASTD Research Award, the APA Placek Award, and five Best Paper Awards from the National Academy of Management. She has or is currently serving on the boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Personnel Psychology. She is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Society, and the American Psychological Association.Marie-Élène Roberge has a master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology from Université du Québec à Montréal and is currently a doctoral student in organizational behavior at the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. She has published several articles on various aspects of human resource management. Her research interests include organizational justice, deviant organizational behavior, and reactions to communication media in the workplace.Sandra L. Robinson (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior as well as an Associate Member of the Psychology Department at the University of British Columbia. Professor Robinson’s research focuses on trust, managing employment relationships, psychological contracts, workplace deviance. Her most research work focuses on territorial behavior in organizations. Her research has appeared in various journals, such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Applied Psychology. Professor Robinson is an associate editor of the Journal of Management Inquiry and she also serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management. She has received a number of awards, including the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management, the Junior Research Excellence Award from the Faculty of Commerce at UBC, and the Cummings Scholar Award from the Academy of Management. Most recently, she was awarded a “Distinguished University Scholar” designation by the University of British Columbia.Mark V. Roehling is an Assistant Professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in Human Resource Management (HRM) from the Broad School of Management, Michigan State University, and his law degree from the University of Michigan. His primary research interests include interdisciplinary studies in HRM and the law, and responsibilities in the employment relationship (psychological, legal, and ethical perspectives). His work has appeared in academic journals (e.g. Personnel Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Human Resource Management, Journal of Business Ethics) and the popular press (e.g. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times). Dr. Roehling is currently serving on the editorial review boards for the Employee Rights and Responsibilities Journal and Human Resource Planning. He is a member of the Academy of Management, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Academy of Legal Studies in Business.Patrick J. Rosopa is a doctoral student in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He earned a B.S. in Psychology from Tulane University and an M.S. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from UCF. He has conducted research on teamwork mental models, the results of which have been presented at the meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. His current research interests include: (a) decision-making in personnel selection; and (b) the use of simulation methods to evaluate the utility of statistical techniques.Philip L. Roth is Professor of Management at Clemson University. Phil’s research interests are employment interviews, grade point average, and utility analysis. He is also interested in missing data, outliers/influential cases, and meta-analysis. He is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the American Psychological Society. His Ph.D. is from the University of Houston.Denise M. Rousseau is the H. J. Heinz II Professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Business. Professor Rousseau is President of the Academy of Management (2004–2005), and Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behavior. Dr. Rousseau is best known for her work on the changing psychological contract in employment, human resource strategies, and the effects of organizational culture on performance. She has published extensively on these topics and has over 100 professional journal articles to her credit. Her books include: Psychological Contracts in Employment (Sage, with Rene Schalk); Relational Wealth: The Advantage of Stability in a Changing Economy (Oxford, with Carrie Leana); and Psychological Contracts in Organizations (Sage). In 1996, her book, Boundaryless Careers: Work, Mobility, and Learning in the New Organizational Era (Oxford, with M. Arthur) won the Academy of Management’s George Terry Award for the best management book. Professor Rousseau’s additional professional honors, include the William A. Davis Award for scholarly research in educational administration and the National Institute for Health Care Management research award. In recognition of her life-long scientific contributions, Dr. Rousseau has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the Academy of Management.Professor René Schalk holds a special chair in Policy and Aging at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and is a faculty member of the department of Organization Studies at Tilburg University. He earned his Ph.D. in Social and Organizational Psychology from Nijmegen University. His research focuses on complexity and dynamics in organizations, with a special focus on the psychological contract, international differences, and policy and aging. He is editor-in-chief of Gedrag en Organisatie, consulting editor for the Journal of Organizational Behavior, editorial board member of the Journal of Managerial Psychology, and reviewer for fourteen international journals. He is co-editor of the book Psychological Contracts in Employment: Cross-national Perspectives, and wrote books on absenteeism and older employees. His publications appear in journals such as Journal of Organizational Behavior, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, and International Small Business Journal.Margaret A. Shaffer is an associate Professor with the Department of Management, Hong Kong Baptist University. She received a Ph.D. in organizational behavior and human resource management from the University of Texas-Arlington. Prior to joining HKBU, she taught at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests are in the areas of expatriate adjustment and performance and life balance. Her work has appeared in various management journals, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of International Business Studies, and Journal of Vocational Behavior. One of her papers on expatriate adjustment (co-authored with David Harrison) received the first “Best International Paper” award from the Academy of Management.Lynn Shore is Visiting Professor at University of California, Irvine, and is joining the faculty at San Diego State University in fall of 2004. Her research on the employee-organization relationship focuses on the influence of social and organizational processes, and her work on diversity has examined the impact that composition of the work group and employee/supervisor dyads has on the attitudes and performance of work groups and individual employees. She has published numerous articles in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, and Journal of Management. Dr. Shore is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She served as the Chair of the Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management. Dr. Shore is the associate editor for the Journal of Applied Psychology.Eugene F. Stone-Romero received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Irvine, and is now Professor of Psychology and Management at the University of Central Florida. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Society, and the American Psychological Association. His research interests include moderator variable detection strategies, ethnic bias in personality measures, cross-cultural influences on organizational behavior, reactions to feedback, work-related values, job satisfaction, biases in performance ratings, and privacy in organizations. Professor Stone-Romero’s work has appeared in such outlets as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Personnel Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Journal of Educational Psychology, International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Multivariate Behavioral Research, and the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. He is also the author of numerous chapters in books dealing with issues germane to the related fields of industrial and organizational psychology, human resources management, and organizational behavior. Finally, he is the author of a book titled Research Methods in Organizational Behavior, and the co-author of a book titled Job Satisfaction: How People Feel About Their Jobs and How It Affects Their Performance.M. Susan Taylor is Dean’s Professor of Human Resources, 2003 University Distinguished Scholar Teacher and Director, of the Center For Human Capital, Innovation and Technology (HCIT) at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland College Park. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational psychology from Purdue University and has been a visiting faculty member at the Amos Tuck School, Dartmouth College, Bocconi University in Milan Italy, the University of Washington, Seattle, London Business School and Wuhan University, in China. Taylor is currently a member of the Academy of Management Board of Governors, incoming senior editor for Organization Science, and Human Resource editor for Sage Publications Foundations of Organizational Science Series, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journals of Applied Psychology and Organizational Behavior. She is also a SIOP Fellow. Taylor’s research interests include the employment relationship, organizational justice, executive career mobility, and organizational innovation and dynamic capabilities.Lois Tetrick is the Director of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology Program at George Mason. Professor Tetrick has served as associate editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology and is currently an associate editor of Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. She also serves on the editorial board of Journal of Organizational Behavior. Dr. Tetrick’s research has focused primarily on individuals’ perceptions of the employment relationship and their reactions to these perceptions including issues of occupational health and safety, occupational stress, and organizational/union commitment. She is active in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and was recently elected to represent SIOP on the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives. She also is active in the Academy of Management and has served as Chair of the Human Resources Division. Dr. Tetrick is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychological Society.Anne S. Tsui is Motorola Professor of International Management at Arizona State University, Professor of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Peking University. She was the 14th editor of the Academy of Management Journal, a Fellow of the Academy, and Founding President of the International Association for Chinese Management Research (www.iacmr.org). Her recent research interests include guanxi relationship of managers, employment relationships, executive leadership and organizational culture, especially in the Chinese context. She has received the Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior Award (1993), the Administrative Science Quarterly Scholarly Contribution Award (1998), the Best Paper in the Academy of Management Journal Award (1998), and the Scholarly Achievement Award in Human Resource Management (1998). She has held faculty appointments previously at Duke University and the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.Linn Van Dyne is Associate Professor, Department of Management at the Broad Graduate School of Business, Michigan State University, USA. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Strategic Management and Organizations. Her research focuses on proactive employee behaviors (such as helping, voice, and minority influence), international organizational behavior, and the effects of work context, roles, and groups on employee attitudes and behaviors. Her work has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Research in Organizational Behavior, and other outlets.Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison (Ph.D. Northwestern University) is a Professor of Management at the Stern School of Business, New York University, and Chair of the Management and Organizations Department. She has won several research awards, including the Cummings Scholar Award from the OB Division of the Academy of Management. Professor Morrison’s research focuses on proactive behaviors by employees (information seeking, networking), how employees adjust to new jobs, the experience of psychological contract violation, and determinants and effects of employee voice and silence. She is interested with how people make sense of, cope with, and impact their work environments. Professor Morrison has published articles in a range of journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Organizational Behavior and the Journal of Management.

President Richard M. Nixon's historic trip to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1972 established a relationship between the United States and the PRC which was formalized when President Nixon signed the Shanghai Communique. This treaty proclaimed China's willingness to accept foreign investment and its movement toward becoming a more “open door” nation. With the normalization of full diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC in 1978, U.S. investments in the PRC and the interest of world marketers has gained momentum. Today there is intense interest in the potential of the PRC market among U.S. consumer goods manufacturers, of both consumer durables and nondurables. U.S. consumer goods companies are starting to produce their products for and in China.

Factors which influence consumer spending, among the most sought after in any field of market research, things people buy and why, is valuable data on which much industrial planning, advertising techniques and marketing is based, but in no other field of trade is consumer preference so closely related to pure economics, i.e., value received in money terms, as in food. With most other commodities, from clothes to cars, hair‐do's to houses, factors affecting consumer choice have different results; appearance, aesthetic quality and neighbourly competition, all play a part, though appearance in a few foods is not entirely without significance, e.g., white bread. Present high levels of consumer spending are said by politicians to be a danger to the country's economy; a more prosaic thought would be that Government spending, or squandering, constituted the greater threat. In the main, factors which influence household food expenditure are essentially down to earth—palatability, digestibility, keeping quality and how far a food will go in the preparation of meals, its value in money terms. The king‐pin in all market research on food must be the woman of the house; it is her laying out of the household purse that determines the amount of food expenditure and the varieties purchased week by week. A housewife's choice, however, is a complex of her family's likes and dislikes, rarely her own, and also determined by the amount allocated from her purse for this part of the household budget and the number of mouths she has to feed. Any tendency to experiment, to extend the variety of food, is only possible with a well‐filled purse; with a large family, a common complaint is of monotony in the diet. A factor of immense importance nowadays is whether the housewife is employed or not, and whether whole‐time or part‐time, and which part of the day she can be in her own home. To this may be attributed, as much as anything, the rise in consumption of convenience foods. Fortunately for the purposes of reasonable accuracy in the results of enquiries, housewives form a class, reliable and steady, unlikely to be contaminated by the palsied opinions of the so‐called lunatic fringe in this unquiet age. Any differences in food choice are likely to be regional, and settled dietary habits, passed on from one generation to another. Statistics from the National Food Surveys show the extent of these, and also consumer preferences as far as food commodity groups are concerned. The Surveys have been running long enough to show something of consumer trends but, of course, they do not exhibit reasons—why consumers buy and use certain foods, their attitudes to food marketing practices, and, in particular, to advertising. Advertising claims, misleading undoubtedly but within the law, have long been a source of controversy between those who worship at the shrine of truth and others less particular. Elsewhere, we review a special study of consumer reactions to aspects of the grocery trade in the U.S.A., and note that 32 per cent do not accept advertisements as being true, but 85 per cent find them interesting and informative. Advertising practices are probably subject to less statutory control in the United States than here, and the descriptions and verbiage certainly reach greater heights of absurdity, but the British housewife is likely to be no more discerning, able “to read between the lines”, than her counterpart in that country. A major difference, however, is that in Britain, more houswives prepare and cook meals for their families than in the United States. The greatest importance of advertising is in the introductory phase of a commodity; new and more vigorous advertising is necessary later to delay the onset of the decline phase of the commodity's life cycle; to ensure that sales can be maintained to prevent rises in supply costs. Advertising helps considerably in the acceptance of a branded food, but housewives tend to ignore cut‐throat competition between rival brands, and what weans a consumer from a brand is not competition in advertising, nor even new and more attractive presentation, but reduction in real price. The main pre‐occupation of the woman of the house is food adequacy, and especially that her children will have what she considers conforms to a nutritious diet, without argument or rebellion on the part of her progeny and without distinction. She knows that bulk foods, carbohydrates, are not necessarily nutritious, although her ideas of which foods contain vitamins or minerals or other important nutrient factors tends to be hazy. She does not pretend to enjoy shopping for food and therefore tends to follow a routine; it saves time and worry. Especially is this so with young married women, who may have to take small children along. Each housewife has her own mental standard of assessing “value”, and would have difficulty in defining it. Nutritional value forms part of it, however, in most women, who connote their food provision with health. The greatest concern is not necessarily positive health, but prevention or reduction of obesity, which is seen among adult members of the family, especially growing girls, as an adverse effect on their appearance, and the types of clothes they can wear. A few of the more intelligent families have an indefinable fear of ischaemic heart disease and its relation to food. When they take positive steps to control the diet for these purposes, they are quite frequently in the wrong direction and rather confused even when this is done on medical advice.