The men who made us fat

I have been an avid watcher of the BBC2 series "The men who made us fat", combining as it does my twin interests of business and nutrition.
The series concluded last week with the summary programme, the first two episodes in the series having expertly shone the spotlight on a) sugar, and b) portion sizes, as the 2 horsemen of our current nutritional apocalypse.
The third programme was a fascinating insight into the food industry. 
The Sunny Delight section was particularly poignant for me...I was working in the Procter & Gamble Beverages division when Sunny D was launched in the UK - albeit I worked on the "other side" of the business looking after the slightly more nutritionally sound fruit juice/drink brands in Germany, Austria and Netherlands. My nutrition knowledge and interest was relatively low at the time - as evidenced by my somewhat excessive (and legendary) consumption of Pringles! But I always had reservations about the formulation of Sunny Delight...reservations I couldn't quite express at the time but which were pretty clear in the programme.
The main focus point for me though, was how the food scandals of BSE, salmonella in eggs etc, created the business opportunity for suppliers and supermarkets in Organics, and in making health claims (like "low fat", "no added sugar", "contains calcium" etc) for products that are essentially not so healthy.
The programme did a better job than I can do of expressing the health arguments and opening some interesting political questions regarding possible regulation to address some of these issues...what I want to talk about is taking opportunities.
What I think business people can learn from this is the absolute expertise shown by Tesco and the other supermarkets, along with food manufacturers, in exploiting a market gap. How do they do that?

• They are experts in consumer psychology and behaviour
• They have a captive audience
• They are very fleet of foot in trialling, launching and adapting products
• Once they see an opportunity, they drive a large fleet of delivery trucks through it, establishing new trends incredibly fast and creating a new "normal"

I glanced at the shopping basket of the customer behind me at the supermarket today and was confronted by a massive array of "low fat" this and "reduced calorie" that. I wanted to ask them if they'd seen the programme - and to recommend it on the i-player if they hadn't.

The reality is, it will take the supermarkets with a similar opportunistic approach to change things for the better.

And I personally am a fan of giving them the incentive to do it. Slap a tax on sugar and sugar substitutes to start with and watch as the supermarkets find the new opportunity in that. Sure, they will find a way...and that's why sugar substitutes must be included as they are potentially even more harmful to our weight and our health than sugar (which, as "The men who made us fat" so clearly demonstrated, is public enemy number one.). But the response will be rapid and effective - you can rely on that!