"Lady-Friendly" Doritos May Be In the Works,Twitter Reacts

Doritos has revealed they are going to launch a new “lady-friendly” version of the snack that are less messy and more quiet to eat. PepsiCo — the company that owns Doritos — has claimed research has found women do not like to lick their fingers or crunch loudly when eating in front of others.

Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo, was prompted by Stehpen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio, about how men and women eat chips in a recent episode released on January 31, 2018. Below is Indra's response to Stephen's question:

DUBNER: I understand that men and women eat chips very differently. Can you tell us the differences?

NOOYI: When you eat out of a flex bag — one of our single-serve bags — especially as you watch a lot of the young guys eat the chips, they love their Doritos, and they lick their fingers with great glee, and when they reach the bottom of the bag they pour the little broken pieces into their mouth, because they don’t want to lose that taste of the flavor, and the broken chips in the bottom. Women would love to do the same, but they don’t. They don’t like to crunch too loudly in public. And they don’t lick their fingers generously and they don’t like to pour the little broken pieces and the flavor into their mouth.

DUBNER: So is there a male and female version of chips that you’re playing with, or no?

NOOYI: It’s not a male and female as much as “are there snacks for women that can be designed and packaged differently?” And yes, we are looking at it, and we’re getting ready to launch a bunch of them soon. For women,  low-crunch, the full taste profile, not have so much of the flavor stick on the fingers, and how can you put it in a purse? Because women love to carry a snack in their purse. 

Women’s campaigners have slammed the unusual move as a “tired gender stereotype.” A spokesman from the Women’s Equality Party said that “Companies that perpetuate these tired gender stereotypes will continue to lose out on the single biggest consumer group: women."

It is not that people are opposed to new approaches to innovate well-known products. The issue seems to be when general claims are made about how one gender acts in a given situation. 

This wouldn't be the first unisex product mass-marketed toward women. In 2012, we saw a release of pens marketed toward women. The Bic for Her pens claim to have, according to the description on Amazon, an "elegant design" that's "just for her" and a "thin barrel to fit a woman's hand." The reactions to the Bic for Her pens were very similar to "lady-friendly" chips tweets we've come across.

The Twittersphere also couldn't help but voice its opinion on this topic as well. Check out some of the tweets below:

Photo Credit: Getty Images


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