Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Grocers Go Macho To Beef Up Sales

BOSTON (CBS) - Gone are the days when women did most of the shopping never mind the cooking. Hey, I've got my shopping list ready for when I drive home today and apparently there are many other men like me.

A study done over the summer by a firm called Midan Marketing finds 47-percent of men ages 18-to-64 do at least half the grocery shopping and meal preparation in the household. And they even have a name for this not-so-new-breed - it's Manfluencer.

Now I don't know how much Manfluence you have in your home but the people who work on Madison Avenue are betting that it's a lot. And guys, they don't want to embarrass you when you're at the store. They want to sell you manly stuff that makes you feel macho.

Because apparently we are that predictable.

The Wall Street Journal did a story on this, focusing on stuff men supposedly won't eat or drink, like yogurt and hard cider.

Those are apparently "girly." So marketers are trying to make them seem more "manly" by changing the pitch and the package to bigger portion sizes and darker color schemes.

And often it's just semantics. That's why hamburger helper changed its package to include the apparently male friendly buzzword, "ultimate."

And the hard cider was a funny one. Miller-Coors decided to call its new line Smith and Forge because they think it sounds strong. It's also got more alcohol because that's supposed to be manly too.

I don't know about you but I'm not sure I'm buying all this.

Maybe I just don't want to be considered this simple.

Or maybe I'm just underestimating my own Manfluence.

Follow Joe on Twitter @joemathieuwbz