Have you truly thought about how many choices we can make any day? The ability to press snooze, the route we take to work, or how we take it, and most importantly, the power of choosing what we eat, when, where and how.

It can be argued that we have more choices now than any other generation when it comes to choosing what we eat. There is a protein bar designed specifically for you, a cookie that is specifically for you, a meat specifically for you. You can even argue that you now have a choice compared to centuries ago with who you marry and what job you want in the future.

50 years ago, we could only choose between canned vegetables and fresh vegetables. Now, you can get them fresh, frozen, at a farmer’s market, or in bulk. We can now order fruits off-season and enjoy 40-year-old wines all over the world.

With this ability to choose, one could argue that this strains the supply chain. Every new CPG product pushes the envelope, as we convince people what’s good for you, or what’s bad for you and why. For every new choice created, waste is produced, ad use is exponentially spent, and other products get erased by the competition.

The backlash of having so many choices affects the supply chain, which affects a whole lot of factors. Food Waste becomes more wasteful because more inputs are set and a more frequent amount of time.

But can we ever reduce the number of choices in our lives? Of course we can, but it’s really hard to do.

Some Issues with Choice

It’s generally believed that rich people have more choices than poor people. A rich person can buy anything they want and go anywhere they want.

When it comes to creating a CPG, a viable method of getting sales is to target people with bigger incomes. This makes sense as wealthier people have the chance to not only spread the good word about your product better but also, you will get more profit out of it. The common strategy for this is called the Tesla model.

Yet because almost everyone follows this model, this can cause a lot of problems. Mainly the fact that you’re focusing on one specific demographic that is just a very loud minority.

There are so many factors where the manufacturer has no choice but to give a product to a premium market. Since food products make pennies on the dollar, the time it takes for a food product to be successful is very long, and the frequency of food products (compared to failures).

So most new CPGs are stuck when it comes to creating products for the not-vocal majority until they find financial success. It’s extremely hard to make a product for the mainstream.

The Culture of Choice

In America, we have an individualistic sort of mindset. The example of bearing children is one of them. We only have one life, the standard convention is to have a kid or five. The joy of having a kid, and feeding your kid the best organic food is something every couple has passed through once in a while.

If you chose not to have a kid, then what would your parents think? They have never not had a kid, they would generally disapprove.

Having a kid or five is a bundle of life and joy, but this is also the reason for the population exponentially growing. For some, the point of life is to have kids. It is really hard to let go of that instinct that drives survival of the human race. This is parallel to the many choices we want to make tomorrow.

However, we are done surviving. We are most definitively thriving as a species. Why? Because we can choose anything or everything that we do.

Capitalism and Choice

The power of capitalism is the ability to create something that solves pain points. One trend in particular is gluten-free. Someone noticed that it was a pain for someone with celiacs couldn’t eat a conventional cracker so she worked really hard to make a gluten-free cracker.

Once people realized that this was a market, people wanted more opportunities to eat gluten-free products so therefore more and more people created gluten-free anything from cereal to bottled water.

Yet as more choices jump on the trend, the choice of being gluten-free becomes more and more popular. Yes, some could say it’s to a point of hysteria, but my celiac friends felt so grateful that they now have a choice to choose what they can eat now.

What is the Right Choice for the Future?

I’m not arguing if a choice is good or bad, but rather, that choice can have consequences in not only a sustainability aspect but also as a psychological addiction. The idea of having these choices is a blessing and a blessing that people don’t really think about.

But can we ever go back to fewer choices? Will it spell doom for our society if we have fewer choices to choose from?

If the solution to give up choices to save the planet, what would you take?

Less choice means fewer opportunities for entrepreneurship, the less opportunity to achieve your dreams. It’s less opportunity to choose a product that doesn’t have gluten. Or less opportunity to choose if you can drink the finest red wine from Italy or not. Could you sacrifice that?

If you can’t, when could you?

Regardless, the next time you go to the grocery store or argue with a person on what’s better, Organic or Non-GMO, remember that someone created these choices, and that’s a beautiful thing.