Food Makers Scrip on Ingredients due to high costs....

[samintx]

Food Makers Scrimp on Ingredients In an Effort to Fatten Their Profits
By Julie Jargon

Word Count: 1,492 | Companies Featured in This Article: Hershey, McCormick, General Mills, Campbell Soup, Sysco, McDonald's, Burger King Holdings, H.J. Heinz, Kellogg
Major food makers are quietly altering their recipes on candy, dairy products and other top-selling lines, adding fillers and substituting cheaper ingredients to cut costs amid the commodities boom.

Hershey Co. is substituting vegetable oil for a portion of the cocoa butter traditionally used in some of its chocolates. Spice maker McCormick & Co. is now supplying food companies with cheaper spices and new flavor blends, such as Mexican oregano instead of pricier Mediterranean oregano, and garlic concentrate instead of heavier (and costlier to ship) garlic cloves.

General Mills Inc. says that by reducing the number of spice and ingredient ...


This is from the PAY WSJ online....I don't have the paid subscription but you get the message....sad sad but I guess inevitable. I would like to read the rest of the article.

[OWC Jamie]

sometimes WSJ (and others) have a google accessible page.
If you google (-news) the article title sometimes you'll get the whole page rather than the teaser to subscribe.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=Food%20Makers%20Scrimp&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

cutting and pasting the link won't work

[shadow]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I can taste when food manufacturer's fiddle with their recipes. Very rarely has the change been positive.

For example, our once in a while treat used to be Dunkin Donuts. However, right around the time the whole trans fat BS started to gain momentum, they changed something. The donuts gained a metallic taste and there was a chemically flavor to the chocolate frosting (this was at more than one store). As such, we haven't purchased anything from there since.

All in the name of making junk food "healthy" or more economical.

[shadow]

Also on Friday, Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms candies and Snickers bars, said it's raising some prices and cutting the size of its Funsize candy packs.

There is nothing "fun" about the "fun size" candy packs.

My idea of fun?

Give me a Three Musketeers the size of a brick. That's "fun size".

[vicrock]

I think the real answer is to buy "real food" and prepare it yourself - the more processed it is, the more expensive, and who knows what the ingredients are.

Shop the outside of the supermarket - meat, fish, veggies, fruit, dairy - you will be healthier and will spend less for more.

[samintx]

Hershey: Isn't cocoa butter better for you than veggie oil?

[BigGuynRusty]

[quote vicrock]I think the real answer is to buy "real food" and prepare it yourself - the more processed it is, the more expensive, and who knows what the ingredients are.

Shop the outside of the supermarket - meat, fish, veggies, fruit, dairy - you will be healthier and will spend less for more. You are so right!!
I'll start growing my own Cacao trees right now!!

BGnR

[incognegro]

didn't you know that Hershey (and probably others) have tried to legally redefine 'chocolate' and lost?

http://consumerist.com/5034753/hersheys-...-chocolate

http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/item/k...ormulated/

This one sums it up nicely:
http://www.friday.com/bbum/2007/11/13/hershey/

Now, the CMA lobbied — in conjunction with the Grocery Manufacturers Association — to have the FDA change the definition of “chocolate” from “containing 100% cocoa butter” to allowing the cocoa butter to be substituted with “hydrogenated or chemically-modified vegetable fats”.

Kirk Saville, a Hershey’s spokesman, said:

"There are high-quality oils available which are equal to or better than cocoa butter in taste, nutrition, texture and function, and are preferred by consumers."

That reads: “Cocoa Butter Expensive. Corn oil cheap. Cheap is good. Customer won’t notice difference.”

DON'T FSCK WITH MY CHOCOLATE.

[gabester]

So I haven't been following along with the latest - I heard about efforts to redefine chocolate in the past and even I think this latest push, but will our sacred substance ever be free of this threat to its fundamental ingredients?
g=

[macphanatic]

Just saw a Hershey's commercial that used the word "Pure" several times, but they never said "Pure Chocolate", etc.