10+ Tricks That Make Food In Ads So Delicious

Every time you see a food ad, your hunger awakens. The treats always look very appetizing in photos or videos, but buying them at the store or cafeteria, unfortunately, what you eat is something quite different. And all because advertisers resort to tricks to make food more appealing.

O awesome.club will reveal some secrets used by advertising professionals to make food look like the “Marilyn Monroe of the food world” on screen. And, at the end of the post, a bonus awaits you, revealing some shocking secrets of the food industry.

If ice cream were a model, she would be a diva. It is extremely capricious and melts as soon as exposed to the spotlight. That’s why it’s always replaced with a dough of a similar texture. Every photographer has their own secret, but the ones most used instead of ice cream are:

gel or silicone putty; mashed potatoes with dyes; flour or icing sugar with corn syrup or cream.

The beautiful cones are also hard to find, so photographers often retouch them or use a “replica”. And in order for the icing to flow elegantly from the surface of the ice cream, a thin layer of polyethylene is placed under it.

When shooting advertising soups (as well as cereal) the main problem is that the ingredients sink in and you don’t see anything. Therefore, a layer of gelatine is placed on the bottom of the dish, then covered with a little broth or water, and there the ingredients are placed.

For cereal ads, no milk is used, but PVA glue or sunscreen for the top layer, which are denser and look like milk. So healthy breakfast doesn’t get soggy and keeps an appetizing appearance for much longer.

Spaghetti for advertising is cooked for a very short time, only for 2-3 minutes. Otherwise, it loses its shape. For close-up shots, the spaghetti is separated on the plate with tweezers, so the shots are perfect.

The chicken in the photo and video should look perfect. But during its preparation it shrinks, loses its shape and flattens on the side. To avoid this problem, photographers use several tricks.

They usually toast the chicken with a blowtorch so that it acquires a golden crust, but remains raw inside. In this way, the meat does not deform and looks juicy and appetizing.

Sometimes the bird remains raw, it is filled with paper towels to achieve the effect of density and fullness. In addition, it is coated with special dyes, self-tanners or shoe polish in order to make it golden.

The ravioli that look so appetizing in advertising pose a lot of problems for food stylists. Each piece that appears in the ad must be hand-carved to make it look perfect. In this case, they are not filled with meat, as the filling transparently creates dark spots on the surface and is replaced by dough. That’s why ravioli have such an ideal color. If necessary, they are wetted with water in the filming process.

Instead of sour cream, PVA glue is used. It makes the product look spectacular, it’s thick and doesn’t melt from the temperature like cream does.

The perfect beer has a beautiful white foam. To preserve and record the beverage’s advertisement, detergents are added to it, which is gently stirred with a whisk.

Gelatin is the ingredient that is often added to baby food before filming or a photo shoot, so it thickens and you can witness those beautiful waves known to everyone who has seen your ad. Sometimes flour or starch is used to thicken it.

If it is necessary to advertise the roast beef, it is usually roasted just a little, until the appetizing crust appears, that is, it is “sealed” with a blowtorch. So the meat in advertising is almost always raw.

To give it more color, the product is dyed with iodine or fuel oil. And the beautiful frames of the grill are painted with a special marker or created by hand: they heat the skewer and gently apply it to the fillet.

A hairspray is applied as a finishing touch to add juiciness and create the impression of dripping oil.

In order for the potato to look elegant, it is fixed on toothpicks. Each potato is placed in one of them, and the entire structure is based on a dishwashing sponge, which helps to form the potato rows, which is simply impossible to achieve otherwise.

Here is the result of the hard work and a real photo of a portion of French fries.

The delicious steam that rises from the dishes deserves our special attention. Naturally, freshly cooked food doesn’t stay hot for long. You can’t imagine what tricks photographers have to resort to to create beautiful vapor! For this, they use steam guns, incense and other means. But the most common option is to heat a damp sponge or pad in the microwave. Such products are placed behind the food, thus creating the necessary effect.

The biggest problem when photographing sodas is the ice that melts in the blink of an eye. That’s why advertising always uses artificial ice cubes, usually acrylic or silicone.

The glass appears sweaty, but not because the drink is cold. It’s actually a mixture of water and glycerin that coats the glasses to create a feeling of freshness.

Champagne requires special attention: for photo shoots, water, soy sauce and effervescent tablets are used to get more bubbles.

The process of photographing a sandwich can also be a big one. Delicious “multi-deck” burgers are anything but stable. In fact, each layer is placed by the photographer. To add volume, cotton or makeup sponge is used, and the ingredients are fixed with toothpicks to support the entire structure.

The cheese looks perfect because it’s only heated in the corners so it melts a little but doesn’t turn into a misshapen dough.

The flesh shines because it’s covered with hairspray. Frying is not used because it is absorbed almost instantly.

Do you see those ideal sesame seeds on the surface of burgers? In fact, these buns do not exist. Just before the photo shoot, a very diligent person glued each seed into place with the help of tweezers and incredible patience. And it’s no joke!

The salads and vegetables you see in the ads aren’t very natural either. These foods are pre-cooked, carefully placed on a plate, and then coated with hairspray or glycerin to shine.

Beautiful multi-layer cakes, as a rule, are made with the help of thick cardboard, which is placed between the layers, and only then the gaps are filled with the filling.

And this is the result:

This trick works for any multi-layered product.

By the way, the cream is also not authentic. Like ice cream, it melts quickly due to lighting, which is why photographers often use shaving foam, which maintains the required density and shape.

The stuffing you see in taco ads is actually made from sponges, glues and cosmetic paints. The filling is difficult to photograph: the tacos are soggy and lose their shape. That’s why most photographers simply paint the sponges with makeup and place them inside the food. Instead of tomatoes, in most cases they use red peppers for their lighter color.

And the tortillas are kept together, because they usually stick together.

Mexican food, of course, is very tasty, but it’s not the most photogenic. This is a real headache for photographers. For example, to add volume and beauty to enchiladas, they use mashed potatoes (by the way, it is also used to fill empanadas and even meat to look more appetizing). Then, just on the edges of the tortilla the vegetables are added, and the cheese is melted with a blowtorch so that it is toasted, but not melted.

Coffee never looks good in the picture, so it is also replaced with soy sauce, sometimes with gelatin, to give it consistency and a “smoother” appearance.

When you need to take a picture of a cappuccino, the milk froth is usually real. But to keep her beautiful bubbles, a little detergent is added. And sometimes the bubbles are even spread manually along the edge of the cup.

Is that you? Do you know some tricks to make your food photos look perfect?