What percent of the total price for food is advertising?

Question

I'm talking an all-in number, including the amount that the manufacturer, the distributor, and the retailer spend on advertisements. If I go to the store and buy a Pop Tart (or any other item), what percent of the cost has been eaten up by billboards, newspaper ads, television commercials, radio ads, internet ads, etc? I would like some references to figures rather than just guesses, but I'll take some guesses too. I'm figuring it is somewhere in the 10-25% range.

Answer 1

It's a good question, but it's far too vague... different food items require different marketing approaches, and therefore, the percentage of advertising to actual cost to actual profit is hard to determine.

A Pop Tart, might be spending 10% on their advertising budget... while a grower of corn may not spend anything on advertising.

Answer 2

The major food companies such as Nestle, Unilever, Kraft etc spend 10% to 15% of revenues on advertising and related expenses.  That includes such things as the cost to run their advertising department and commercial production as well as the direct costs for buying media.  (Its what they list as advertising expenses on government filings).  It's reasonable to say that 10% to 15% of food costs go to advertsising-related expenses.