Haven’t bought name brand Pop-Tarts in years, but have occasionally picked up Toaster 'Betes or whatever the off-brand versions are called.
Noticed a ‘sale’ on the name brand and got conned into buying them. They’re now smaller, have less frosting, and have way less filling. The damn things were so flimsy that two of them snapped trying to take them out of the toaster.
If you get a craving for some nice sugary betes for breakfast, stick to the off-brands. They’re now higher quality than the name brand.
The future is stupid.
I buy store brand everything now. It’s ridiculous. Have you had a brand name Fig Newton lately? It’s sawdust. Ridiculous.
I have not but I might have made that mistake in the future. Thanks for the warning. It’s so weird that off-brands for everything appeared as cheaper lower quality versions and then the world went to such shit they’re now the higher quality version.
How are so many things now worse quality and higher priced than their own knock-offs? They should all be committing Sudoku in shame.
Seppuku*
Gesundheit
They earned public trust and brand-recognition over many years. Then, once they became the de facto product, they started min-maxing their production. Smaller portions, cheaper ingredients, automating as much of the production line as possible to cut employees, reducing wages for “less work”, etc. They’re hoping no one would notice that the product you’re buying isn’t living up to the original standard.
If you’re willing to pay the same price for cheaper production, then the company can literally make money without having to sell more product. They can show in their shareholder meetings that sales are going way up, even though consumer purchases may not have changed much at all. Heck, even if sales are going down, profits could still show an increase!
Then of course, there’s “inflation,” which they use to justify raising prices over time. Even though the product is worse than the original, you’re now paying way more for it.
This is the endgame of capitalism. Maximize profits at the cost of consumers. When money is the primary focus of a business, quality of goods and services will always degrade over time.
You can read about The Thermocline of Trust, which I found interesting.
The Pillsbury Doughboy has a bit of a belly, it might be difficult to disembowel himself with a math puzzle.
I appreciate the typo, it’s funnier.
It’s not a typo, just a meme. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/commit-sudoku
Paper cuts are no joke when you’re only 2 inches tall.
I am convinced the terms “generic” and “off brand” are both psyops to get people more into big brands.
I mean, back in the day they were true. You could get the name brand stuff, or the off brand stuff that looked mostly the same but had a weird after taste or something. Now the name brand stuff has degraded completely but the off brands have barely changed. Hopefully it stays this way, because we’re like 2 steps of enshittification away from everything tasting like sawdust.
They really never were. This was a reputation, yes, but it was not warranted. It’s taken a hell of a long time for enough people to realize this.
Nothing significant has changed in the last couple of decades, at least. Maybe back into the 60s, 70s, 80s or so, I won’t debate. But since the turn fo the century at a minimum, store brands almost always use a producer that produces for name brands. It’s often literally the same product. At worst, it might be stuff that didn’t quite make the name brand standards, or it might hvae a little less quality or something, but almost all of the time, it’s the same thing.
There might be some exception - I certainly haven’t tried the myriad of store brands for stores I haven’t gone to, but i’ve been buying mostly store brands for quite a number of years now, and almost all the time, there’s no difference.
Like one I can think of: Store-brand “Doritos” might have a bit less “cheese” on them. Or might have the same, depends. Most of the time it’s the same thing, though.
Yeah… I’m talking about all those years you’re skipping. Off-brands didn’t used to be made on the same production lines. And since the off-brand pop tarts are much different and better, it seems they’re still not.
psssst… Nature’s Bakery are dope.
Speaking of fig newtons. We started getting dried rosselino or Salem white figs in bulk and just having those instead. So much better than any fig newtons thing.
If you can get them, the Clover Valley ones ($1.85 @ Dollar General) are pretty good, although the fig filling is golden rather than brown.
Thank you. Will give em a try!