Shoppers seeing red at pink and blue

A Countdown shopper has called out the supermarket for what she calls outdated stereotypes on food.

Felicity Bright posted on Countdown’s Facebook page yesterday after seeing pink sprinkles labelled for girls and blue sprinkles for boys.

‘‘I was intrigued to see boy and girl sprinkles in your Hobsonville store the other day. How do these work? I sprinkle the ‘boy’ in the air and a boy appears? Or a girl, if I sprinkle the suitably pink version?

‘‘Or do I sprinkle the ‘girl’ ones on to my boy to turn him into a girl and vice versa? Could you explain? I’m curious about the relationship between sprinkles and gender.

‘‘Maybe, just maybe, it’s old-fashioned everyday sexism. Perhaps you could revise your labels.’’

The post has attracted a flurry of more than 1700 comments, many accusing Bright of overreacting.

But Megan Firster supported the post and said it was disappointing ‘‘to see the number of people brushing this off. It’s not about the sprinkles, but rather the outdated stereotypes represented here’’.

Countdown spokesperson Kate Porter said she had just been made aware of the gendered sprinkle colours.

‘‘We absolutely agree that these shouldn’t be gendered. We are in the process of changing the ticketing as quickly as we can,’’ she said.

Last week Mitre 10 was sent a similar message from a Rotorua shopper about its labelling of pink ’’ladies’’ tools.

The Rotorua shopper, who did not want to be named, had no issue with the colour of the tools, but did not think they should be marketed towards just women.

‘‘My issue, which I was trying to draw attention to in a funny way, is that the sign should read ‘pink tool set’,’’ she said.

A Mitre 10 spokeswoman said the tools sold were for all genders and the store ‘‘printed a price ticket in error’’.

‘‘Although we have previously sourced smaller tools in other colours with the sets, it’s the pink ones that sell the most by a long shot. We get asked for them when they are out of stock.’’

University of Auckland marketing expert Dr Bodo Lang said some shoppers were too quick to complain on social media.

‘‘When consumers want to complain about something there are many ways to do it,’’ he said.

‘‘The old-fashioned way is to complain directly to the company, which is very private. If you don’t get action then it’s fair to put it on a public forum, it’s legitimate to do that.

‘‘But if it’s your first port of call it’s abusing the power a little.’’

Lang said different colour options were fine, but marketing colours for a certain gender was not.

‘‘If something is available in pink and blue that’s fine, but if the colour is prescribed – pink clearly targeting girls – that’s not healthy.

‘‘If it’s explicitly marketed to boys it’s not right because it’s not giving consumers the choice they ought to have.’’