The new packages of Annie’s Shells and Aged Cheddar proclaim that the new recipe is cheesier.
But the ingredients don’t exactly shout new and improved.
*MOUSE PRINT:
While cheese is still the predominant ingredient, the new cheesier version has had the butter and skim milk removed and corn starch – a thickener – added. The amount of salt has gone up. Worse, the amount of protein and calcium has gone down when one might have expected it to increase if there is more cheese in the product.
Many recent reviews on the company’s website pan the new recipe, saying things like:
Will companies never learn?
That’s terrible. Thanks for reporting. I’ll stick to Walmart’s brand
Disappointing to see a product I liked get in the handbasket. Why would they remove butter? What’s next? Seed oils and their derivatives? One poor formulary choice away from Kraft. You have to read labels even in your previously analyzed items!
Edgar, thanks once again for showing consumers how we are being misled. Shrinkflation is diminishing product quality across-the-board, whereby it is only a matter of time before product quality is so degraded, and so much product value is lost, that consumers may stop buying products they once enjoyed. When this happens, manufacturers will chalk it up to changing consumer tastes and preferences. Consumers will know better. Like most business experiences, once a customer is lost, they rarely return. Business leaders have clearly subordinated their long-term success to short-term financial gains produced from shrinkflation.
How does removing butter make it cheesier??
They mean “cheesy” in the sense of “cheap, unpleasant, or blatantly inauthentic,” not in the sense of “like cheese in taste, smell, or consistency.”
Thank you, Edgar! I always learn several actionable and interesting things every Monday from your diligent work. This news on Annie’s is yet another excellent example of skimpflation. It is so disheartening to see a quality brand become slowly eroded when it is acquired by a giant like General Mills. It is confusing that GM does not protect the integrity of the Annie’s brand which is why GM wanted to acquire them in the first place.
This is my theory and is not meant to be argumentative: GM acquiring Annie’s gets the brand under their control and eliminates a competitor. Numbers crunchers then go to work to increase the profit margin by decreasing cost of production by altering ingredients. They count on many “non-readers” to keep sales up and maybe growing. IF it finally does go “bust,” they had a nice ride. This is sort of another version of Pump-and-Dump. It’s akin to Tony Soprano taking over that guy’s deli – milking the proceeds – then burning it down for the insurance.
Check any other brand Mac & Cheese,to see what the ingredients are.I just checked a box of Besler and it looks as bad as the reformulated Annie’s.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all product labels are required by law to add the % to each ingredient listed in order of predominance? How easy would this make for comparison with other brands of like products?
In some other countries, they do this. We could have it too, but we need to demand it.
I have a general rule that almost always ends up true: If the packaging has changed, they’ve cheapened the product.
It’s unfortunate, though the business story of Annie’s is not one of great heritage. The owners previously had failed snack food business, then created Annie’s along the trendy themes of the 1990s. It didn’t take long before they did a public stock offering, and not long thereafter the stock value had seriously declined. The company was thrilled to be bought by General Mills at a premium. I like their mac & cheese as well, though the bar (versus Kraft alone) has always been low. I would have more regrets if they had a more moving history or more truly nutritional products.
My current food related pet peeve is the sodium in everything these days. As I get older I have to watch my sodium and I am shocked at how much it has gone up in recent years in all prepared foods despite what the “reports” tell us. The only reason it looks like it’s going down is because some manufacturers are actually making “reduced sodium” products. Annie’s makes a 25% reduced sodium version and it’s the only brand that does, but it’s still too high in sodium at 400 mg per 1 cup serving. And now I find out that they’ve jacked up the sodium in their “new” regular version from 470 mg. in a 1 cup serving to 550 mg.! That’s insane. When the daily recommended sodium intake should be no more than 2,000 mg. per day, 550 on one side dish is way too much!
I even wrote to Kraft a couple of months ago suggesting that they make a reduced sodium version and I got some word salad in response about how it would “compromise the taste and texture too much for their product standards”. What total BS.
I’m with you on that. I’m lucky to not be salt-sensitive, but this stuff is too salty even for me most of the time. Like, it’s not that hard or that expensive for the consumer to add a little salt themselves to taste. It’s strange to me that the manufacturers believe that if their product doesn’t taste salty enough, people won’t buy it anymore rather than just add a little salt themselves.
I generally look at products that say New and Improved or change the look of the packaging as something fishy going on. They’ve either succumbed to shrinkflation or changed the recipe and not in a good way. Only in a way that saves them money.
You would think a company known for quality organic ingredients wouldn’t try to pull a fast one on their customers but not even Annie’s is above this behavior.