It's what happened with Bassets Winegums. Used to be my absolute favourite candy. Wife came back from the UK with a box,I opened it and the taste was... Different. Googled - turns out they changed the recipe after being purchased by some large conglomerate. I haven't had one of their candies since 13 years ago. Fucking idiots.

The New Coke fiasco begs to differ.

The cynic in me imagines that they switch away from real chocolate, everyone will hate it, they'll release a new product line that proclaims it uses real chocolate, but charge a premium for it, and people will buy it.

I think we’re talking about very old brands that sell in big numbers because they’ve locked in grocery store shelf space and Halloween combo bag deals. It’s not like every sale is made after a careful taste test.

Boomers with practically no taste buds left will still buy these to hand out to trick or treaters because they remember them being good 40 years ago. Meanwhile the manufacturer can add millions in profit by shaving costs here and there, because they operate at such huge volume. Their brand is mature and their market is saturated. They can’t really grow sales anymore so all they can do to juice profits is cut costs.

I’m not justifying their way of thinking, just saying this is why they don’t behave as if every single candy must taste amazing. Their profits keep chugging without that. And if you aren’t growing profits, you’re dead. So blame capitalism for the underlying reasons for why they can’t just leave well enough alone.

Well if they all do it, who are ya gonna run to?

That's what happened to me and Oreo's during the switch from soy oil to trans-fat-free oils. They were NASTY during that transition.

That doesn't sound like this quarter's problem, or even next quarter's problem. In fact, that doesn't even sound like the quarter after that's problem.

Stupidity and short term money.

Reminds me of CHOW, the "food-free food" marketed by Famine in Good Omens.

It's like a full synthetic oil change, but for your gut.

...but no slavery

I was getting some melting wafers the other day and grabbed a bag of Ghirardelli, which has been pretty reliable in the past. I didn't catch that they were "chocolate flavored" wafers until I was at checkout. Chocolate was the 8th ingredient.

Hershey's chocolate tastes like wax and vegetable oil.

And then use scare tactics to convince everyone that we have to use their products for Halloween.

Reeses Cups are the absolute worst candy these days. They are so terrible now, and I used to love them. The peanut filling is gross.

you can get better chocolate at aldi and make your own peanut butter cups at home, it's fairly easy

edit, Ive made pot peanut butter cups before, is delightful.

low dose, but, infuse the marijuana bud with coconut oil and use the coconut oil in the chocolte when you melt it. You cant put much, but it's fun none the less

I mean, isn't "white chocolate" 0% cocoa?

Inb4: butyric acid

A somehow necessary ingredient in Hershey's which lingers unpleasantly on the palate, otherwise known as a stomach acid which imbues your vomit with the unmistakeable flavor of vomit

^Whyyyyyyyyy^

Yes. Host recipes. Get productive.

This has basically been my mantra for the last 5 years. "Fuck off, I'll do it myself."

So, do we need baking community?

!bready@lemmy.world

Chocolate is often candymaking, not baking, though.

Baking is relatively easy, but how do you make your own chocolate? I don't think you can properly do that at home.

I recently made brownies from scratch, and they came out so much better than the box brownies that I usually make, that my entire family noticed, and really loved them. It wasn't that much more work than the box, you just had to measure out the flour, sugar, and cocoa, but the difference was huge. Well worth the slight extra effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzanNNq_JZU&t=47

I read your comment in her voice

Cooking nerd here. You can kind of make your own chocolate.

You almost certainly can't make chocolate from scratch. You could, in theory do all the steps but even in the old days it was an industrial process and it's nearly impossible to get the quality control tight enough at home. The fermentation, roasting, and grinding steps all have to be done under very precise conditions or you won't get good chocolate.

You could just go really old school and use the Aztec recipes but that's not "chocolate" as most people would know it. It's more like a spiced tea.

Home cooks can buy chocolate (it's worth it to splurge and get nice chocolate if you're going through this much trouble) and mix it and shape it. You can make a wide array of flavored ganaches, coat things in chocolate, fill chocolate shells with stuff, etc.

The hardest part is tempering. Chocolate is actually a crystal. The short version is that if you don't control that crystal formation through careful temperature and movement control, your chocolate will get weird and chalky; if you get that all right it's smooth and snappy. There are books and videos on it but you'll need to mess up a bunch of batches before you learn it.

if you don't like capitalism stop eating corpo food.

This.

Might be a little time consuming but very rewarding. Also, they can be a easy gift to friends and families.

Good luck finding cocoa powder or baking chocolate which is pure rather than mainly sugar.

Buy Tonys. The alternatives are bad for you

We have an inflation target now, they either raise prices or shrinkflate. Its much easier to shrinkflate.

This might be the case in the US. In the EU, chocolate is taken much more seriously. This vomit-flavored abomination called Hersheys "chocolate" is probably illegal and unfit for human consumption here.

it's about marketing.

people don't buy what is not familiar. so it's very much in their interest to market these replacements as familiar products.

food is a emotional thing, it's not logical of thoughtful. people typically only eat what they know or perceive to be good based on what others eat.

They only want to protect their profits. When the alternatives work fine, they fight against them. When theyre cheapening their own product they fight to hide it.

They aren't. Next time you're at the store, actually look at what the label says. It'll be a big "CHOCOLATE" and then a smaller "flavored candy".

Fruit juice from concentrate is still 100% fruit juice though. It just had the water removed and re-added.
But they do often make it "cranberry juice cocktail", which is some part cranberry juice and mostly apple juice.

And just this week I saw orange juice that was also part pear and apple juice, but that's probably because of citrus greening killing the orange groves.