From chocolate toothpaste in the Philippines to salt and vinegar potato chips in the UK, products popular in one place often receive a cool reception elsewhere. It of course poses a challenge to food companies seeking to export their brands.
The snack-food company Frito-Lay addresses the issue by discovering the best-loved flavours in each of their markets. So while cheese, spicy chilli and barbecue are popular flavours in the USA, Turkey goes for yogurt. The French prefer olive and Japan likes sushi flavours. But all of them are sold under the globally familiar Doritos brand. Frito-Lay’s understanding of local tastes around the world-and the successful adaptation of their product-has made Doritos one of the world’s most popular snack foods.
Everyone everywhere loves ice cream, it seems. The Anglo-Dutch food giant Unilever sells it in over 40 countries. The company used to sell their ice cream under a lot of different brands, which created the sense that the companies were local. In 1998, the company launched the ‘Heartbrand’ logo (标志) to increase international brand awareness, but kept the familiar local names for the ice cream products. This helped avoid the problem of some names not sounding good in other languages. So in Bulgaria and Greece, you buy Algida, but in China, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK, it’s Wall’s.
There are some products that will always remain at home, such as the durian (榴莲), known as the ‘the king of fruits’ in its homeland of Southeast Asia. The fruit’s most notable feature is its strong smell, described by some as that of rotten onions and by others as old gym socks, though it is said to taste delicious by its fans. Though some durians are grown outside of Southeast Asia, the only place the fruit enjoys any wide popularity at all is in Southeast Asia and even there, some people can’t stand it! So don’t expect to see durians in your local supermarket any time soon.
【小题1】What does the underlined word “It” in paragraph I refer to?| A．The snack culture. |
| B．The cold welcome. |
| C．The food preference. |
| D．The global popularity. |
| A．They provide chips of high quality. |
| B．They make snacks to suit local tastes. |
| C．They unite markets of different countries. |
| D．They use advertising to build new brands. |
| A．Anglo-Dutch. | B．Algida. | C．Heartbrand. | D．Wall’s. |
| A．Durians’ sales dilemma. |
| B．Durians’ nutritional value. |
| C．Durians’ smell problems. |
| D．Durians’ attractive features. |
