This was pretty genius! I'm looking forward to trying the "new formula" even though it won't taste any different haha
Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
21–30 of 192 posts
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#22I'm fairly certain this change came to Canada first but unlike the USA, it was announced. Kraft launched a new version of Kraft Dinner (what you Yanks call "Mac and Cheese") with the preservatives replaced by natural things last year. I thought it tasted fine and was happy that it's even a little healthier.
Maybe the preservatives were better for you ;)
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#23I'm fairly certain this change came to Canada first but unlike the USA, it was announced. Kraft launched a new version of Kraft Dinner (what you Yanks call "Mac and Cheese") with the preservatives replaced by natural things last year. I thought it tasted fine and was happy that it's even a little healthier.
There was a change.org petition by "Food Babe" to get this changed due to a lot of bunk arguments. Replacing a tiny amount of a very common food dye is not going to affect the healthiness in any substantial way.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't actually use the original formula. They used the opportunity to switch from Cane sugar to Corn Syrup. Since people didn't have the ability to taste the difference any more, no one noticed. This let them cut the cost of a major ingredient which then translated into profit. They gained a LOT more from the failed product.
And decades later, we all still talk about it. Classic Coke is so awesome that it cannot be changed because EVERYBODY WILL REVOLT! Achieving that level of mythos about a product is an astonishing accomplishment.
They revolt if they know its happening. Even today Coke has lots of different recipes. A bottle is very different from a fountain machine at a restaurant for instance. And folks don't get out the torches and pitchforks.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#25I don't remember new Pepsi, but new Coke had a huge backslash which lead to pulling the product off the market, reversing back to original formula. And if I remember correctly, this original Coke, dubbed Coca-Cola Classic saw much better sales than the same coke did before that. Making people wonder if the new coke fiasco wasn't intentional.
They didn't actually use the original formula. They used the opportunity to switch from Cane sugar to Corn Syrup. Since people didn't have the ability to taste the difference any more, no one noticed. This let them cut the cost of a major ingredient which then translated into profit. They gained a LOT more from the failed product.
The switch to HFCS started 5 years before New Coke. Some bottlers were already using only HFCS at the time New Coke happened.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#26I think this story is actually a pretty incredible one. Just logistically it's a very interesting story that they were able to keep their collective corporate mouth shut--and even though it seems they're gearing up to milk the marketing effort now, that they did this without immediate payout in terms of brand marketing is surprising. And it's not like we're talking about a processed food brand with a million variants…
It wasn't a secret, it was fully announced it just didn't have a media blitz associated with it. For example, it was reported on in the Washington Post[1].
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/2...
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#27... and this is why people with severe allergies always always always read the ingredients list, even if the packaging has not changed. And always carry emergency medication.
Since I've discovered I've had celiac (the real deal) ~6 years ago, I've read a lot more ingredient labels than I used to, and I can vouch for the fact that food formulations change more than you'd expect without fanfare. For all that you might find "gluten free!" splattered all over a lot of things, I can tell you there have also been a lot of foods that have silently gone gluten-free over the years, along with trying to minimize their use of the other major allergens.
This includes even very big name brands, such as Doritos. For a long time, Doritos was gluten free in nearly all of its flavors except its "default" Nacho Cheese flavor. Suddenly and silently, it went gluten free. I don't know exactly when because I wasn't looking. I was actually trying to show someone that only that flavor had the wheat in it, except the bag went and contradicted my claim. I may have missed it but I don't think they ever publicized it, or if they did, it wasn't much. (Contrast, for instance, Corn Chex which has talked about being gluten free on its box now for years after it changed.)
Imitation crab meat is another example; it has gone from reliably containing wheat, to unreliably being gluten free depending on brand, to what appears to be converging on generally not containing wheat, just in the past few years. I'll still be checking labels for a while on that one, though.
(And before the inevitable commenter pops up: The things that I do not know whether they contain wheat are, pretty much by definition, the highly-processed foods high in refined carbs, so my examples have a selection bias in that direction. I do not eat either of the things I mention often or in quantity. But I'm not always 100% in charge of my food environment and it is nice at someone else's party to be able to eat something sometimes.)
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#28I think this story is actually a pretty incredible one. Just logistically it's a very interesting story that they were able to keep their collective corporate mouth shut--and even though it seems they're gearing up to milk the marketing effort now, that they did this without immediate payout in terms of brand marketing is surprising. And it's not like we're talking about a processed food brand with a million variants…
It wasn't a secret, it was fully announced it just didn't have a media blitz associated with it. For example, it was reported on in the Washington Post[1]. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/2...
That agrees with the OP. Still, its not 'fully announced' if they don't have a 'media blitz' - its called a soft launch. In the end almost nobody remembered it was going to happen; almost nobody noticed.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#29I don't remember new Pepsi, but new Coke had a huge backslash which lead to pulling the product off the market, reversing back to original formula. And if I remember correctly, this original Coke, dubbed Coca-Cola Classic saw much better sales than the same coke did before that. Making people wonder if the new coke fiasco wasn't intentional.
> new Coke had a huge backslash
Sadly no appropriate MS-DOS jokes come to mind
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#30... and this is why people with severe allergies always always always read the ingredients list, even if the packaging has not changed. And always carry emergency medication.
I feel like that kind of comparison is a good candidate for a side project. Take picture, OCR, compare to old list, turn red if it's different
Would be a cool app project. "Scan" each label as you put it in your cart, and see if it rejects it or not