Many of us have been flirted with by fruit; perhaps it can’t help being fruity, following the principles of nominative determinism. ‘PLEASE DON’T SQUEEZE ME TILL I’M YOURS’ blushing peaches on market stalls used to beg, lest we bruise them with our greedy paws. ‘UNZIP A BANANA’ leered a television commercial, so typical of the licentious 1960s. As if knowing that vegetables can never be as sexy, fungi could only fight back with the highly uninspired ‘MAKE ROOM FOR THE MUSHROOMS’ slogan of the 1980s – a limp retort at best.  

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The rise of the child-haters

What they all had in common was the anthropomorphisation of food. It seemed like a bit of fun at first. But then Nanny State put herself firmly between you and your foodstuffs and a scolding tone replaced the bit of banter about not getting many of those to the pound. It started with fruit juice sternly advising us that it was one of our NHS-mandated ‘5 A Day’; don’t just think you can drink the whole carton and fill up on bonbons! Then the makers of sugary cereals and savoury snacks started advising us that they were only to be ‘enjoyed’ as part of a balanced diet.   

Things were getting boring – and then came the rise of ‘wackaging.’ A portmanteau of ‘wacky’ and ‘packaging’ the word was coined by Rebecca Nicolson in 2011 to describe the retail trend whereby anything from cleaning products to banking apps appear to address the putative consumer directly in a conversational manner. But mainly – and this could be traced all the way back to Alice and her EAT ME and DRINK ME treats – it was used by eatables and drinkables.  

These might be as basic as ‘Keep me in the fridge’ or ‘Wash me thoroughly before consuming’ – no one objects to helpful suggestions like these. But the rot set in with Innocent Drinks; the self-righteous smoothie........

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