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Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

nytimes.com

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Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#181

Post by nyangosling »

empath75 wrote: post #31
nyangosling wrote: post #11

I 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.

Good, that's the way I like it.

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#182

Post by thaumasiotes »

bduerst wrote: post #96
thaumasiotes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone actually starts this project, be sure to record two more data points: - price of product - food mass of product Those vary invisibly all the time, and it'd be great to have a record of it.

I worked on an idea/project a couple years ago to OCR prices off of shelves in grocery stores. Basically you could scan an isle in Safeway and have a geo-based price list of grocery goods. After talking to people about it though, it became apparent that most grocery shoppers already have an idea of where they are going to buy groceries, making location more important than price. It's a razor thin industry, and even t…

Well, if Hershey bars lose a few grams as a stealth price increase at one store, they're going to lose them at every store. What you're talking about is orthogonal to what I'm talking about.

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#183

Post by thaumasiotes »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #64
thaumasiotes wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And I think we can attribute that to the strategy Kraft used to specifically avoid what happened to Coke. What if Kraft had made the change and announced it?

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#185

Post by jdeibele »

unprepare wrote: post #119
douche wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been all that impressed by Annies (weirdly enough, I remember this being a view bordering on heresy when I was in college...), it struck me as being too expensive and too fussy to make. Adult-Kraft dinner is too easy to make - substitute real macaroni, and cheddar instead of the florescent orange cheese dust, same milk and butter. I mix in some American slices or Velveeta-esque process cheese, since I thin…

>too fussy to make 1. boil water 2 stir in pasta, cook 8-10 minutes 3 strain pasta 4 add 3 Tbsp of milk 5 sprinkle cheese powder 6 add pasta and combine [1] And from kraft its: 1 boil water, stir in pasta, cook 8-10 minutes 2 drain, return to pan 3 add milk, butter, cheese powder and combine [2] Its the exact same process either way. Are you saying you buy kraft dinner boxes and then use only the macaroni noodles (ma…

When I made Annies for the kids my "secret" was to whisk the cheese powder in the milk. It made it much more creamy.

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#186

Post by [deleted] »

douche wrote: post #99
dunham wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and kid are pretty happy with Annie's. Might be worth trying if you're looking for another brand. (The only stuff I eat these days is homemade, typically gruyère-based, but we keep Annie's on hand in case we don't have leftovers for lunch.)

I've never been all that impressed by Annies (weirdly enough, I remember this being a view bordering on heresy when I was in college...), it struck me as being too expensive and too fussy to make. Adult-Kraft dinner is too easy to make - substitute real macaroni, and cheddar instead of the florescent orange cheese dust, same milk and butter. I mix in some American slices or Velveeta-esque process cheese, since I thin…

[deleted]

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#187

Post by rangibaby »

themodelplumber wrote: post #101
rangibaby wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rambling ahead: the spot occupied by \ is the ¥ mark on Japanese keyboards. I mention it because a Windows 98 toaster I used for Myspace and transferring songs to my iPod displayed paths like this: C:¥foo¥bar¥. Which reminds me of another adventure: The Japanese keyboard I use requires pressing shift to get a tilde (the tilde spot is occupied by a key to switch input methods on some keyboards and nothing on others).…

That's cool, I remember the yen signs. I lived in Japan for a while and studied Japanese but have never used an actual Japanese keyboard (just various IMEs over the years). What keyboard do you use? [/guy who was just modding NIBBLES.BAS yesterday]

I mainly use the small Apple keyboards, which are the OADG 109 key layout minus the numpad.

Symbols are in different places compared to overseas keyboards (@ is to the right of P and doesn't require pressing shift, and ctrl and caps lock are swapped). It's not a problem except with old or lazy apps that expect them to be in a certain places, like my DOOM3 example.

There are a bunch of different Japanese layouts actually, a Japanese company makes keyboards with blank caps so you can use which ever one you like:

http://www.pfusystems.com/embedded-keyboard/hhkb/index.html

There is kana input, but I have yet to meet someone who uses that instead of an IME. I see a lot of people using it on their phones, though.

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#188

Post by teolemon »

jeromeflipo wrote: post #67
Godel_unicode wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

http://world.openfoodfacts.org/cgi/search.pl?action=process&...

We have them :-) We also store every single revision of the product, but we don't display the changes yet.

Join us on http://slack.openfoodfacts.org to see how we can just do that.

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#189

Post by anexprogrammer »

checker wrote: post #130
anexprogrammer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 choc…

According to Wikipedia, they transitioned from chocolate (which legally in the US must only contain cocoa butter fats) to "cocoa-flavored", which can contain less or no cocoa butter and includes cheaper fats such as vegetable oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadbury_Creme_Egg#Changes_to_p... http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-may19apr19-story.html

That would explain why the texture is wrong then. Best word I can find is "slimy", and is too sweet which is quite an achievement in a product that's 80% fondant.

Re: Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50M Boxes Later

#190

Post by Ensorceled »

blairanderson wrote: post #63
eveningcoffee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disease, allergy and sensitivity.

My friend has celiac, my co-worker is mildly allergic to wheat, I'm sensitive to gluten.

Too much gluten makes me gassy so I avoid large quantities, but that's pretty much it. My co-worker breaks out in hives. My friend is in for a world of hurt.

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