Truffles: It’s All About Aspiration

By Bernice Hurst, Managing Director, Fine Food Network

Advertising for the big British supermarkets focuses on slogans about everyday low prices and how every little bit helps. That is, the never-ending battle to beat the competition at satisfying shoppers on a budget. But now Asda (owned as you undoubtedly know by the kings of “value,” Wal-Mart) is trying to make ordinary folk believe they can eat like the celebrities they admire, albeit at a price they can afford.

Today’s allegedly most aspirational food, in the eyes of Asda’s marketing team, is truffles. Generally found in France and Italy, the chain has now decided to grow its own fungi, announcing plans to impregnate the roots of oak and beech trees in West Yorkshire (one of the country’s more northern counties which boasts particularly rich soil) with spores. Pontefract, the location identified for the trial, is a former mining town with a reputation for growing licorice and rhubarb.

Notoriously difficult to grow and never available widely or in large quantities, it isn’t unknown for truffles to sell for anything up to £1000 (more than $2000) per kilo (2.2 lb). Store spokesman, Alan Slator, told the Guardian, “Truffles are normally the food of millionaires. People eating in some restaurants can pay £50 just to have a few scrapings on the top of their food. We want to bring them to ordinary people.”

Aspiration doesn’t always go hand in hand with achievement, though. Hence, perhaps, caveats at the outset to cover the corporate tush by pointing out that it will take at least five years for the first harvest and, furthermore, there is no guarantee that the truffles will grow at all. Plus, of course, the location has to be kept a deep dark secret to prevent looters getting there before Asda’s buying team.

Discussion Questions: Do you think supermarkets that have built their reputations on selling affordable food should also encourage aspirational eating? Is this too much of a deviation from their core values?

[Author’s commentary] As a child, I read somewhere that pheasant under glass was the ultimate luxury food. Later, someone murmured the word caviar in my foodie ear. Now, apparently, people who want to eat like the rich and famous crave truffles. Whichever takes your fancy, though, the point is that there will always be some food or other that we ordinary folk think will make us more like those we admire. What an interesting measure that is…

• Yorkshire pud makes way for Yorkshire truffle – The Guardian