Persil's "Dirt Is Good" extends into food aisles with flavoured muds to consume safely at home

It's no secret that Generation-A is growing up 'overly protected' in most of Western Europe and North America. While children born before the 2000's spent their days running outside, exchanging top-trump cards and killing small animals, for the youngest generation it's the Great Indoors. Valid concerns are being raised their domestication is becoming a health threat.

We are guided past a demo shelf at the Port Sunlight facilities by Tom (27), a young brand intrapreneur assigned to the Persil team. "It's been a real puzzle, but we're all very excited about where our new brand extensions can take the Persil brand. Ever since we succesfully launched the 'Dirt Is Good' campaign, we enjoyed a liberating detachment from the Henkel* steering committee. Now we can freely project the brand's Dirt DNA onto any new trend we spot."

Tom grabs two tubs of Persil's new 'Eat Dirt' range from the shelf and gives us one. "I might not have children myself, but for senior leadership I'm young enough to be considered a spokesperson for anyone under 30. When I read how childrens' immune systems are getting worse because of their sterile indoor lives, I knew we had an angle into a whole new Dirt universe." Pointing out the various claims and logos on pack, "Dirt is full of good bacteria that help strengthen a young child's immune system and microbiome. Playing outside in the dirt at a young age invariably leads to ingestion and happy healthy kids. That's where we bring in the convenience, the flavours and the safety of consumption at home."

We ask how they source their muds in such an impressive spectrum of textures and shades of brown, he explains. "But this isn't mud from some field, that would be dangerous! Just imagine a recall for tapeworms or Anthrax!" He laughs. "When we divested our spreads brands, a few of the R&D team came onto our programme 'I can't believe it's not dirt!' and that's exactly what they developed. It's mostly soy, pectin, sugar and cocoa. And the mess it makes can be cleaned with our new line of carpet cleaners. We foresee strong demand for years to come, it's fantastic."

Expect to see 'Eat Dirt' on shelves near you before year-end.

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*) TWD: The German industrial giant Henkel owns the Persil brand but couldn't stomach "Dreck ist gut" and have since distanced themselves from the UK licensee

#Mud #Microbiome #Food #Health

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