Industry | Frozen dinner |
---|---|
Founded | 1989 |
Area served | United States |
Parent | ConAgra |
Website | kidcuisine |
Kid Cuisine is a brand of packaged frozen meals first sold in April 1989 [1] and marketed by Conagra Foods. [2] Described as a "frozen food version of a Happy Meal", [3] the product is marketed towards children, while assuring parents of nutritional benefits. The mascot of the brand is a penguin named K.C. (short for "Kid Cuisine"), [4] while the former was a different penguin named B.J. and a polar bear named "The Chef". [5]
Kid Cuisine is what its own marketing agency in the 1990s and 2000s described as a "kid-driven request item", that is, children would ask their parents to buy these items. [6] Advertisements for Kid Cuisine were consciously aimed at the child, which was urged to request their mothers or parental guardians to buy these items, especially in the upper range of the 3-10 year old range the brand aimed at. [7]
Kid Cuisine relies on advertising with TV and movie characters, including The Avengers , Frozen , and SpongeBob SquarePants ; the company also had a "Hello Kitty" chicken nugget dinner. [3]
Most Kid Cuisine meals have been attested historically to be composed of three or four foods, including some with desserts like cakes, smoothies, cookies, brownies, and pudding, which has color-changing sprinkles. The other foods included are burgers, french fries, tacos, quesadillas, hot dogs, corn dogs, chicken nuggets and drumsticks, macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, pizza, vegetables such as corn, fruit snacks, spaghetti, and occasionally breakfast foods like pancakes, sausages, berry toppings and tater tots as well as fruit cups.
Between April 26, 2022 and June 11, 2022, Kid Cuisine changed their logo and mascot to a simpler logo, and K.C. is now a more realistic penguin rather than the cartoon. [4]
The foods sold under the brand often have what Bettina Elias Siegel, author of Kid Food, called "nutritionally questionable combos", including "cheeseburgers or mac and cheese served with corn and gummy candy,[ sic ] chicken nuggets served with French fries and pudding", inter alia . By 2010, such foods were increasingly questioned as the obesity epidemic took center stage, and Conagra developed a new marketing technique to keep convincing mothers to buy these products for their children. With the slogan "The more you know, the less you 'no'", they attempted to convince mothers that Kid Cuisine did actually provide nutritional foods that mothers would not have to say "no" to. But "good reasons" to say "yes" were, according to Siegel, very weak, and included assurances about some of the meals containing minerals and vitamins, and "minor nutritional tweaks" like using whole grain flour for the breading of chicken nuggets. In addition, the brand changed its mascots, ran an ad campaign aimed directly at children, which included games where children could sign up and win prizes. 20,000 children signed up online in 17 days, and many came back again and again to play branded games. The dual strategy that, according to Siegel, is at work here, targets parents and children: parents' "nutritional vigilance" is eroded, while children are encouraged to demand "unhealthy" products. [6]
Kid Cuisine meals that are still known to be produced, as of 2024:
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Lean Cuisine is a brand of frozen entrées and dinners sold in the United States by Nestlé, and in Australia by Vesco. The brand began as low-fat, low-calorie versions of Stouffer's products. Today, Lean Cuisine includes traditional dinners, ethnic dishes, pizzas, whole-grain Spa Cuisine entreés, and panini. The headquarters of Lean Cuisine in the United States is located in Solon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
Mexican street food, called antojitos, is prepared by street vendors and at small traditional markets in Mexico. Street foods include tacos, tamales, gorditas, quesadillas, empalmes, tostadas, chalupa, elote, tlayudas, cemita, pambazo, empanada, nachos, chilaquiles, fajitas, tortas, even hamburgers and hot dogs, as well as fresh fruits, vegetables, beverages and soups such as menudo, pozole and pancita. Most are available in the morning and the evening, as mid-afternoon is the time for the main formal meal of the day. Mexico has one of the most extensive street food cultures in Latin America, and Forbes named Mexico City as one of the foremost cities in the world in which to eat on the street.
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The cuisine of Wisconsin is a type of Midwestern cuisine found throughout the state of Wisconsin in the United States of America. Known as "America's Dairyland", Wisconsin is famous for its cheese as well as other dairy products, such as cheese curds and frozen custard. Other notable foods common to the region include bratwursts, beer, brandy Old Fashioned cocktails, butter burgers, fish fries and fish boils, cranberries, and booyah stew.
Looney Tunes Meals were a line of frozen dinners released by Tyson Foods in 1990. They were based on the characters from the eponymous Warner Bros. cartoons and targeted primarily at children. The meals were discontinued in late 1993 because of declining sales.
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Libby's was an American company that produced canned food and beverages. The firm was established in 1869 in Chicago, Illinois. The Libby's trademark is currently owned by Libby's Brand Holding based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is licensed to several companies around the world.