Teeny Tiny Broccoli People, Part Deux

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We reported earlier on the oddities in Cascadian Farm's packaging design discovered by the bloggers at Bread & Honey. They found images of strange, tiny faces embedded in the tips of broccoli on boxes of Cascadian Farm broccoli florets. Here's a close-up, below.

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Well, it turns that there is even more to the story. Tipped off by one of their readers, the enterprising bloggers went back to the supermarket in search of more packaging quirks and found something very unusual on the labels of jars of Cascadian Farm concord grape jam. Looking very closely at the label's illustration of a pastoral farm setting, they saw that there were babies -- yes, babies -- in the hills! Below is a close up (and at top is an enlargement of one of the faces).

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When blogger Alicia Carrier contacted Small Planet Foods, the parent company of Cascadian Farm (owned by General Mills), she received this straightforward, yet puzzling, response claiming total awareness of the faces: "The tradition of hiding names or faces on Cascadian Farm packaging began over a dozen years ago. It was unspoken tribute by the package design department to the friends & family of Cascadian Farm."

Despite this homespun tradition at the company, Small Planet Foods promised that, "The faces won’t be included on our redesigned packaging."


 
Posted by Josh Friedland on Oct 29, 2008 in What's Fresh | Link | | Print this page | Share This



 

Comments

Oct 29, 2008 12:50:51 PM
Posted By: kayenne

why not continue the tradition? does it bother so many people? I think it's ingenious!

 

Oct 29, 2008 6:24:02 PM
Posted By: shannon

I thought that type of quirky, personal packaging was gone forever. I have to admit, I went to the Small Planet Foods website and sent in a comment asking them NOT to drop the faces. I don't know that it will do any good, but here's the link if anyone else cares to do the same. http://consumercontacts.generalmills.com/ConsolidatedContact.aspx?page=http://www.smallplanetfoods.com

 

Jan 28, 2010 9:45:19 PM
Posted By: Rain

I think its subliminal-but not a bad subliminal message at all. All's it is is the maker of the brand probably wanted his family or friends some part in his brand, to remember them.Or something like that. I think its kinda cool man.

 

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