• USA Today, Thursday, October 8, 2009 10:49 AM

What do Wendy's, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and Campbell have in common? They are among the big names participating in a "Buffalo stampede," Bruce Horovitz writes. A record 47 new products with the term "Buffalo" in their names showed last year, according to Datamonitor, and 28 more have appeared through mid-September this year.

Besides giving otherwise bland products a kick, the spicy, hot pepper-laden flavoring has almost no nutritional negatives -- it's not high in fat, sodium or calories.

"It's good for taking consumers' minds and taste buds off the fact that some products may be cutting fat, calories and even portion sizes," says Tom Vierhile, director of product launch analytics at Datamonitor. And older people like spicier stuff, he says, and we are collectively getting older, as Tanya Irwin points out this morning in her Marketing Daily story about General Mills partnering with Yahoo on a new Web site named Vitality.

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