Michael Eisner's Candy Nipples

Margo G. Wootan has a message for former Disney chief Michael Eisner. "I think I speak for millions of parents," she wrote to him in an open letter, "when I say: Mr. Eisner, please keep your candy nipples out of our children's mouths."

Yes, Eisner does have candy nipples. And yes, he is putting them in the mouths of children. The nipples are atop containers of Baby Bottle Pop, a candy product made by Topps, the storied bubblegum/baseball-card company that Eisner acquired for $385 million as part of a consortium in 2007 (warning: the above link will cause Jonas Brothers music to emit, unbidden, from your speakers).

Wootan is the nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. She calls the marketing of Baby Bottle Pop "food porn," in part because of Topps' use of young stars like the Jonas Brothers and the Clique Girlz to push the product by appearing on the package and in TV spots on Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, and Toon Disney.

"It's gross for Topps to use young kids to peddle junk food to young kids," she wrote.

According to a New York Times article from January, the candy product has two parts, "a nipple-shaped lollipop top and a bottle-shaped container filled with fruit-flavored powder. Consumers are meant to lick the top and dip it into the powder."

CSPI notes on its Web site that the product's top three ingredients are sugar, dextrose, and corn syrup, "or, in other words, sugar, sugar and sugar." It also contains a bunch of dyes that CSPI has urged the Food and Drug Administration to ban.

CSPI never hesitates to employ hyperbole (and it works—here I am writing about them). Topps "is the North Korea of the food industry," Wootan wrote in her letter. "They've isolated themselves from the community of responsible food marketers. They're a rogue player that maintains the lowest standards of conduct."

That's in part because Topps hasn't signed on to the Better Business Bureau's Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, which has devised voluntary standards for marketing food to kids. Companies that have signed on include Coca-Cola, Kellogg, McDonald's, and Pepsico.

Nutritionist Marion Nestle notes on her blog that long before the sale, Arthur Shorin, the former owner of Topps, told her that he was in a bind. "Without doing irresponsible marketing, he couldn't sell enough candy to stay in business," Nestle writes. At the time of the sale, Shorin said, "There will be a change in ownership, but not a change in direction."

I've put a call in to Topps and will update with the company's reaction, if any.

(Baby Bottle Pop candy image by The Topps Company, Inc.)