What comes to mind when you think about college food? Probably not anything good—amid classes and criminal textbook costs, uni fare was all about convenience over five-star dishes. It’s a tale as old as time, and even ‘70s students felt the everyday pressures of being alone for the first time, forced to fend for themselves.
Well, don’t you worry. A well-known food company came to the rescue with its answer to the problem: food in jars. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that; we eat food out of cans and jars every day…but not this food. No, the little company that came through was Gerber, and the solution was a bigger flop than they anticipated.
Adults Need Baby Food, Too—Right?
Alright, who are we kidding? We’ve absolutely gone down the baby food aisle and wondered what pureed blueberries tasted like. Gerber thought as much, and in 1974, they released a line of jarred baby food pedaled to adults. It was called Gerber Singles. Hungry college students could sink their spoons into anything from Mediterranean vegetables to something called “beef burgundy.” If you were really craving restaurant-style meals in a jar, Gerber also offered sweet and sour pork.
Their hearts were in the right place. The idea was that struggling students had enough to worry about being out of their parents’ place for the first time. According to a 1974 article from La Crosse Tribune, Gerber’s pitch was, “We were good for you then, we’re good for you now.”
So, what went wrong?
Well, adults didn’t really want to stuff their faces with gruel. Though Gerber didn’t market the line as baby food per se, they also didn’t package it any differently—the so-called meals came in jars of mystery mash that each had the same weird, dark color. They weren’t huge either (though that wouldn’t have made them any better), so the tiny portions also left a lot to the imagination.
It didn’t help that, at the time, Gerber was already suffering from a dwindling market. The La Crosse Tribune also reported that Gerber tried to convince people to mix its baby food into their desserts. It didn’t seem like the wackiest idea, especially with so many jarred desserts available, but the suggestion hinted at Gerber’s scramble for business with a larger market.
Dust in the Wind
In the end, Gerber Singles was for naught; it didn’t take long for the company to get the message. As quickly as it arrived, Gerber yanked its idea off the shelves and stuck with what it knows best. (It’s not like babies ever complained about their mushy meals, even if they did toss them on the floor.)
Singles is considered one of the biggest flops of the food industry—funny, considering how popular Gerber still is for teething toddlers. But it just goes to show that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and definitely don’t sell “pork” in a jar to starving college students.
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