Why No Food Inserts in the 2010s?

[Troy Kirk]

To me the fun of card collecting is to put a set together card by card. Food inserts are perfect for this type of collecting. But there haven't been any food inserts in years, why? It seems like MLB and the player's association have made Topps the only company that can sell baseball cards. So fun food inserts are out I guess until things change.

[JWBlue]

Originally Posted by Troy Kirk

To me the fun of card collecting is to put a set together card by card. Food inserts are perfect for this type of collecting. But there haven't been any food inserts in years, why? It seems like MLB and the player's association have made Topps the only company that can sell baseball cards. So fun food inserts are out I guess until things change.

I do miss getting cards in cereal, bread, and desserts like in the 80's.

Wonder Bread used to have Star Wars cards in packages.

[GoldenAge50s]

I think it's strictly because licensing costs have gone so high, w/ MLB & the MLBPA wanting so much bigger piece of the pie! It's just not feasable anymore for the candy or food mfrs to use cards as a come-on.

[ALR-bishop]

Starting in 68 and 69 he got the players organized and focused on what they were leaving on the table for likeness licenses. Their power grew from then. They took on Topps in those years and won, which is why there are so many old and hatless and airbrushed cards in those sets. Then the owners got in on it. I think Fred is right on

[ALR-bishop]

Double post

[David W]

Plus with player salaries so high, there is little incentive or need for extra money for promo sort of cards, like the food/cereal/bread cards which at one time were quite common.

If you are making 10 to 20 million per year, there is no pressure on the Players Union to find extra income opportunities for the players.

[BradH]

Originally Posted by David W

Plus with player salaries so high, there is little incentive or need for extra money for promo sort of cards...If you are making 10 to 20 million per year, there is no pressure on the Players Union to find extra income opportunities for the players.

Trust me, this is not the reason - in the players' eyes, the more the better. Makes no difference how much they make. It'd be "free money" in their minds because they don't really have to do anything to get it.

MLB has made the fees so high for companies to license their products, it's just generally not a cost-effective move for the food companies.

[DaClyde]

Originally Posted by BradH

MLB has made the fees so high for companies to license their products, it's just generally not a cost-effective move for the food companies.

These days, it should be MLB paying the other companies to include cards in their products so more people would know that baseball cards are still a thing.

[valediction]

I think we as collectors also had become a little too obsessive. The older sets were often product stained and miscut. I had a friend that worked for Kraft in the 1980's, and the stories he told about people trying to send Mac and Cheese boxes back because they rubbed against the others during packing/shipping, and the card weren't 'Mint' anymore.