Welcome to the magic kingdom of Disney-branded food.

Other companies have followed suit. Discovery Kids announced a similar produce-marketing initiative a year after Disney's, and Viacom's (VIA) Nickelodeon vowed to end licensing of its characters on unhealthy foods by early 2009. Not only are other media companies discovering the potential advantages of the health-food market, but they're increasingly under siege for associating with foods linked to childhood obesity. Nickelodeon has already faced a messy lawsuit for marketing Pop-Tarts through SpongeBob SquarePants. And last summer, a Federal Trade Commission report made a sweeping call for all entertainment companies to "limit the licensing of their characters to healthier foods and beverages that are marketed to children."

But do we really want to extend the already-ubiquitous marketing of kid culture to food? "If we think about children's well-being, the best thing we could do is to stop marketing any food to them and let parents make choices about what their children eat without being undermined by advertising," says Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. She argues that training children to select foods based on their packaging can lead to unhealthy eating habits later on.

Somehow, though, that kind of criticism seems unlikely to slow Disney down. It is currently expanding its line of whole-wheat-breaded Mickey Mouse-shaped chicken nuggets to national wholesale giant Costco (COST), as well as beefing up licensing offerings with Campbell's (CPB) soup. According to Gatewood, the food segment of the Disney Consumer Products Group predicts double-digit growth relative to last year, whereas other merchandising units will likely decline.

As the world's top licensor, Disney profits from lending its characters to tons of outlets, from T-shirt makers to toy manufacturers. But the supermarket is one of very few thriving markets these days; while parents are spending fewer discretionary dollars on playthings and extra clothes for their kids, most aren't cutting back on basic groceries. In fact, some supermarkets aren't hurting at all from the downturn. Families are reportedly dining out less and stocking up at the supermarket instead. And now a slew of cartoon characters are fortuitously there to greet them in nearly every aisle.