Soybean Madness

I was recently in the grocery store shopping for alternatives to whole milk. As I walked along the dairy aisle, I noticed that there was some rice milk, goat’s milk, and various versions of soy milk.

“Soy milk?” I pondered.

There was organic soy milk, store brand soy milk, and off-brand (generic) soy milk.

Before I made my final selection, I decided to journey down some of the other grocery store aisles. There, I noticed that there was soy cooking oil, soy (bi-products) in bread, and soy in recovery drinks. Everywhere I looked, there was soy, soy, soy!

Are there not any other beans in the world? Why do we NOT see black, white, pinto, or Garbanzo bean milk? Are the other beans not as nutritious as soy? Do the other beans not taste well? Are the other beans more expensive to produce? Or, is this the outcome of what they call the industrial imperative?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, here is the Rush abridged version:

Whenever an industry leader takes some form of action (i.e., produces a new product, changes an existing product, or alters its price structure, etc.) all the other industry players feel the need to follow suite in order to remain competitive in the marketplace.

As a result, we end up with similar products with varying prices. It seems as though the bean industry (this is not the proper terminology) has forgotten that there are three basic marketing strategies. That is, organizations compete with one another based on price, differentiation, and niche. When are we going to see some differentiation when it comes to bean products?