Whoever thought of this must be a parent. This is brilliant, and exactly like changes you make when you feed picky eaters (and they probably know that they are a staple food for picky eaters).
Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
61–70 of 192 posts
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't doing this illegal? Since it makes people think they're buying the same product they always have but it has actually changed. At least in Brazil, every time the formula of a product, or the quantity in the package, is changed, companies have to disclose that on the packaging.
When you say "disclose that on the packaging," do you mean something more than just changing the list of ingredients printed on the package? Here, the packaging must describe the contents and that description must be accurate, so changes must be reflected there. But nothing requires them to say "hey, we changed this" beyond changing the nutritional information, which most people don't pay attention to.
And it's worth noting this is one of those places where the technicalities kill it. How major a change is needed to trigger a 'formula changed' warning? The reality is lots of products these days change on a batch-by-batch basis to reduce costs or use what is available.
Legislation forcing companies to disclose that something has changed in a more noticable (less specific) way, would no doubt just result in those warnings always being there, making them just as useless (I mean, maybe you could say 'new formula as of ', but again, people are probably just going to ignore it with that much detail).
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 tryi…
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. Good find! But as have been indicated here http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35727244 , this may be counterproductive.
You're conflating disease and allergy.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I want to contrast this with your (!) earlier comment: > Maybe they [Kraft] worried too much. Even though the change was written on the box, nobody noticed or commented. That's how much people cared. I agree with the comment I'm responding to; I think Kraft was completely correct to worry, for exactly the reason you state here.
But it played out differently here. Kraft mentioned it; nobody blinked. They made the change and marked it on the box; nobody commented. That's a very different result than Coke's experience.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is, the ingredients can change without the UPC code changing. You would need manufacturers to purchase and use unique UPC codes for each version of their food formulations.
Neither parent nor grandparent references UPC. Grandparent references the list of ingredients.
Sorry about that! I didn't assume someone would suggest having a mobile device OCR an ingredients label, versus looking up a UPC code tied to an ingredients list and groking for your allergies.
One is easy, the other is hard.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah, I don't see how it's possible for all fountains to get the exact same syrup and gas concentrations. Especially with ice and temperature also being factors.
> don't see how it's possible
It could be computerized pretty easily, it's just not.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#67... 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
build on http://openfoodfacts.org?
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#68Are Kraft and Mondelez the same company? They now own British chocolate company Cadbury and have received a lot of criticism for changing recipes there (amongst other things). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/7-ways-ca...
Kraft renamed themselves Mondelez after spinning off grocery brands who now use the Kraft name - Philadelphia cheese etc.
Mondelez are well on the way to destroying the Cadbury brand here.
One of the things Kraft made a big deal of during the takeover was promising to keep a particular UK plant open. 7 days after finalisation they announced the plant's closure.
Creme Eggs are now revolting, It's not even Cadbury choclate any more, but some sugary cheap fake chocolate. Being egg shaped, they were commonly sold in packs of 6, now sold in 5s - same price. They're also markedly smaller.
They've fiddled with most products, generally made them noticeably worse, and shrunk the sizes of nearly everything.
I buy other makes these days.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#69Earlier 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.
The sweetener isn't part of the Coca-Cola formula (or more specifically, isn't part of the Coca-Cola concentrate). Coca-Cola provides unsweetened concentrate to independent bottlers, and the bottlers add high fructose corn syrup, sugar, or both during the bottling process. Some US Coca-Cola bottlers still only use sugar for sweetener.
No, but the formula needs to be adjusted for different sweeteners in order to keep the same final flavor.
Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later
#70I 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 tastes of butter, salt, and poverty, same as always.
Is it hard to breathe when it rains?