Foods They Secretly Changed and Don't Want You To Know About

Have you ever looked down at a candy bar you’re eating and wondered if they used to be bigger? Or peered at the store shelves and thought that it wasn’t that expensive last year? The good news is you’re not going crazy! Food companies are constantly changing their products, often in the smallest ways, hoping their consumers won’t notice. Let's explore some products they don’t want you to know have secretly changed.

Toblerone Shrinkflation

Back in 2016, Toblerone secretly changed the formation of the bars, so that there was less chocolate in each one. They did this by removing two of the peaks, as well as widening the gaps between them. This reduced the cost of production by approximately 10%. Of course, Toblerone maintained the same sized packaging size and price, so customers only discovered the lack of chocolate when they unwrapped the bar!

As illegal as this sounds, there’s actually a name for this modern phenomenon: shrinkflation. This is when companies reduce the amount of product without anyone noticing, often leaving the prices the same or higher than before. This is usually to either stealthily boost profit margins or maintain them in the face of rising costs.

Because of shrinkflation, the two original, glorious Toblerone sizes used to weigh in at 14oz and 6oz respectively, but the 2016 change meant these two bars shrunk down to 12oz and 5oz. Thankfully, the outcry was so enormous that in 2018, the original sizes were restored, and the 6oz bar was swapped for a 7oz one.

But perhaps an even worse downgrade has been the quality. Legally, they cannot claim their chocolate is purely Swiss made anymore, due to some of its production moving to Slovakia. Because of this, they’ve had to change their logo in line with Switzerland’s marketing restrictions, so the famous Swiss iconography of the Matterhorn is no longer on their packaging, replaced instead with a generic mountaintop!

Gatorade Decrease

If you need an energy boost, you'll probably buy a Gatorade with its sugary hydrating goodness! Unfortunately, it looks like the company has been powering down by giving us less liquid for the same price. Gatorade have secretly disguised this 14% decrease through their bottle designs. Although they’re still the same height, they’ve made the newer bottles released in 2022 much slimmer than before, and supposedly easier to handle.

This means that the company has gotten away with giving us 28oz instead of the original 32. Manufactured by PepsiCo, the price of Gatorade’s 28oz bottles are $1.72 in Walmart as of the time of writing this article, when for 32oz, they were on sale for $1.66. By distracting customers with the new shape of the bottle, they tricked us into paying a higher price for less! As of September 2023, PepsiCo had dragged in a ginormous $91.5 bn in revenue, up 5.88% from 2022. So, couldn’t we at least keep Gatorade at the same price as before?

Subway: Yoga Mat Chemical & Confectionary

You might see the sandwich chain Subway as a healthier option to other, greasier fast foods. Their slogan is "eat fresh", their color scheme uses a healthy-looking green color, and they offer more veggies and lean meat options than a lot of other joints. But despite appearing to offer the healthy choice, it really doesn’t.

Subway used to mix a chemical called azodicarbonamide into their bread, which doesn’t sound like something that belongs in food at all! This harmful chemical is normally used to increase the elasticity of rubber shoe soles, synthetic leather, and yoga mats. Yes, you’ve been eating yoga mat sandwiches!

Although the FDA approves the use of very low quantities of it for getting baked goods to rise, inhaling too much of it can induce asthma. So, why was it in Subway’s bread in the first place? Well, it was perfect for increasing the strength, texture and volume of the bread they used, giving them their signature loaves.

After being discovered in 2014 by a food blogger, a petition was launched against its use. Subway responded by saying they’d always had plans to remove it, but I don’t think I believe that, considering that it was only in response to the petition that they completely phased it out of their products in April 2014. But that’s not all.

As of 2020, Subway bread is now no longer legally considered bread, but is instead, confectionary! Yes, it’s cake! Normally, the sugar content should not exceed 2% of a bread’s total weight, but to make up for all the chemicals they’ve had to remove in recent years, Subway has increased their bread’s sugar content to a staggering 10%! This extra sugar is not only the reason it’s closer to cake than bread, but also why it smells so different to others!

Twinkies Now & Then

Nothing tastes as nostalgic as a Twinkie. It was the perfect sweet treat; a cream flavored filling and a sponge as soft as a pillow. At least, they used to be. When they were first invented by James Dewar in 1930, the filling was actually banana flavored. That is, until bananas were too difficult to get hold of, due to rationing in World War II. So, they switched to a basic cream flavoring instead. Thankfully they did, even if this cream is actually just sugar and oil.

After many years of success, the manufacturer, Hostess, went bankrupt when sales dramatically fell during the 90s. By 2004, Hostess were $700 million in debt, and as a result, Twinkies were discontinued in 2012. Thankfully, investment firms Apollo Global Management and Metropoulos & Co decided to buy the company out of its money troubles, and Twinkie hysteria soon rose again.

After a whole year without them on the shelves, people just couldn’t wait to get their hands on all that sugary goodness. But they soon noticed a huge difference between the Twinkies of old and these new imitations. The cakes were smaller and drier, and the filling didn’t taste right.

Hostess eventually admitted to changing them to extend their shelf life from 14 to 45 days. A cheap trick, and a sneaky one too. Despite the drop in quality, Hostess started making $400m a year by 2015, and is now worth over $4 billion. A happily ever after? It would have been, if they had just left the recipe alone!

Pringles Shrinkflation

Have you ever got your hand stuck inside a Pringles can before? It gets harder and harder to pull it out every year. There may be a reason for that, not because you're getting bigger, but because Pringles aren’t immune to shrinkflation. What used to be a standard can size of 5.2oz has noticeably shrunk to an insulting 4.7oz, and they were both sold for the same price tag of $5 in Australia.

The company said that the cans and chip sizes were cut down in 2016 to fit in with a new manufacturing facility in Malaysia. This production center apparently has different equipment to the original US factory, which is Pringles’ extremely bad excuse for decreasing the size of their cans.

The new can size is so much smaller, you can actually fit it inside the old can! And it’s not just the packaging that’s shrunk, but the chips themselves!

They should be modelled on the hyperbolic paraboloid. This satisfying curve reduces the risk of the chips breaking during production. But here, it just looks like a regular potato chip. As only 40% of the chips are actually potato flour, this shrinkflation is even worse than you could imagine! This travesty isn’t just happening down under, though. In the US, different flavors can be different sizes. This cheddar cheese can is 5.5oz, while the original can is 5.2, but they’re both $2.29!

Nutella Recipe Change

Whether you like your Nutella on toast, on a cake, or straight off the spoon, the hazelnut cocoa spread has been a kitchen staple for chocolate lovers since it first hit the shelves back in 1964. But for every chocaholic out there came some devastating disappointment in 2017.

Nutella changed the recipe under everyone’s noses by adding more sugar and skimmed milk at the expense of the cocoa. The new recipe is a clear downgrade in quality, with a rise in powdered milk from 7.5% to 8.7%, and a sugar content that’s risen from 55.9% to 56.3%. These factors also changed the color from dark to light brown.

It was first noticed by the Hamburg Consumer Protection Centre, which released these findings on their Facebook page. Customers were outraged to find out that the product wasn’t the same, but Nutella claimed it tasted identical, only citing the switch as a minor fine-tuning to the recipe.

If you’re still a fan, there’s more bad news. In 2021, Nutella shrank the size of their jars from 14oz to 12oz. Well, in 2018, it was estimated that 15 to 20% of all packaged food products had been downsized since 2013.

New Coke Flop

Coca-Cola is one of the most successful beverage companies in the world, and they’d never do anything to compromise that, would they? Well, in 1985, they put their reputation on the line with a recipe change. When ‘New Coke’ hit the shelves, they were hoping consumers would love the new taste. Instead, they filed over 40,000 angry complaints, forcing them to bring back classic Coke.

Why did they do this? Some people believe that the new version was used to cover up the company’s switch from natural sugar cane to artificial fructose syrup, which is much cheaper. Another red flag was the taste itself; they had made it sweeter than before. In tests, it went down a treat. But in real life, customers realized they missed the taste of regular Coca-Cola.

The disappointment, and the sales, were so bad, it only took three months for New Coke to be pulled from the shelves, and classic Coke to take its rightful place once again. Unsurprisingly, sales for this original coke soared, increasing more than twice the rate of rival Pepsi.

In 2019, New Coke made its reappearance on the market, with 50,000 units available to buy. Unbelievably, the demand was so great that the orders crashed the website, and reviews for the taste were much more positive. Some people even admitted to preferring the taste to classic Coke.

Kraft Mac N Cheese Recipe Change

Of all the comfort meals, mac ‘n’ cheese is an all-time favorite. And even more comforting is Kraft’s mac ‘n’ cheese. There’s just something about the distinctive cheesiness in their boxed up recipe that can’t be replicated anywhere else, right?

This family favorite has stayed constant through the years, so there’s no reason it would need to change. But it did, and we had no idea about it! In 2016, the company removed artificial preservatives, flavors and dyes, such as yellow 5 and 6. These artificial dyes are what kept that sauce looking Chernobyl-level neon. Instead, they opted to use natural spices like paprika and turmeric.

Kraft did this after learning parents were starting to prioritize their children’s nutrition, but swapping artificial dyes for natural ones doesn’t mean the mac is any healthier. Natural flavors come from proteins and plants, but both are still heavily processed in labs.

It seems like it didn’t really make much difference anyway, since customers didn’t notice the switcheroo at all. More than 50 million boxes were sold when the change was first made, showing no deviation from regular sales patterns. So, the change had no effect.

Nescafé Recipe Change

When waking up in the morning, we all need coffee. Coffee just helps us cope. Which is exactly why customers were so frustrated when Nescafe changed one of the coffee products back in 2015. The company released an "improved" version of their sachet range called Café Menu, with packet lattes and cappuccinos that were supposedly creamier and frothier with a fuller taste.

Does anyone really know what that means? Well, it was Nescafe’s defense when customers started blowing up their social media, claiming that the coffee tasted disgusting, with some even vowing to boycott the brand and comparing it to ‘dishwater.’ These fans were so upset, in fact, Nescafe started deleting comments and blocking users from posting at them, which is a cardinal internet sin!

So, what alterations were made to make these customers so angry? Nescafe admitted to tampering with the texture, as well as the flavor of the coffee formula. Like Nutella, the new product seemed to have a greater concentration of milk powder at 17%, with only 7% actual coffee. So improved really meant cheaper to produce.

Oreo Shrinkflation

Oreo is America’s favorite cookie! The company has been around since 1912, and we’ve been twisting, licking and dunking this sweet sandwich cookie ever since. But in 1997, a significant change was made to the recipe without consumers knowing, they removed the pig lard. People might gag at the idea of a cookie containing animal fat in this day and age, but it gave the Oreos of the day their flavor.

Oreo’s owners Nabisco were hoping to get into the lucrative kosher food market, and with pigs not being a kosher animal, Oreo’s had to remove the lard and spend more than $150,000, some $300,000 today, over 3 and a half years to thoroughly cleanse its baking ovens of the ingredient. They replaced the lard with trans fats, which eventually made the cookies both kosher and vegan, so just about everyone could enjoy them!

But there have since been cases of low quality and shrinkflation afoot. In 2016, there were many reports of the crème filling and chocolate cookie not tasting the same. While Oreos are still made in the US, Nabisco started moving some production facilities to Mexico. Incredibly, customers claim to be able to taste the difference between American and Mexican produced cookies. But the changes don’t stop there; many fans have noticed a lack of crème in their Oreos, contrary to the packaging.

These fillings are nowhere near the edges, nor are they very thick! The ratio should be 71% cookie to 29% crème, with 0.17oz of the filling in each one, but that doesn’t feel right. Compare them to a photo from 1986, and you’ll clearly spot the difference. The net weight has been reduced too. It went from 16 glorious ounces of Oreos to a measly 13.29oz today.

McDonald's Changes

McDonald’s famous golden arches have seen many, many visits since the fast-food chain’s conception back in 1955. And, unsurprisingly, its menu has adapted and changed over the years. But some of them haven’t gone down as well as others.

Recently, the US changed not only the appearance, but the recipe, of its famous apple pie. The mouthwatering, deep-fried pastry, which was hotter than the sun when you bit into it, delighted customers since 1968, but in 2018 McDonalds decided to switch to a baked version instead.

Granted, it looks more like the all-American apple pie, but it now contains less sugar and fewer ingredients overall, upsetting many fans. Further controversies surrounded their famous burgers, with many accusing McDonald’s of shrinking them down. You might think that they look like they always have since they started out more than 50 years ago, but TV adverts 20 years apart show how the classic Big Mac now looks way smaller!

After denying the accusations for years, McDonald’s eventually confirmed that their burger buns had shrunk. They went from 4.5 inches to a 4-inch bun, which is probably why so much stuff slides out the sides.

Fanta Flavor Changes

There’s nothing like a can of cold orange Fanta on a hot day. If you’re a fan of the citrus taste, you wouldn’t want anything about it to change! Fanta started all the way back in Germany, 1940. Created by Coca-Cola Deutschland, Fanta was made from sugar beet, whey and apple pomace leftovers, a perfect way to prevent waste at the height of ongoing war. As you can see in the image below, this left the "klassik" drink with a pale-yellow appearance.

In 1955, the Fanta we all know and love today was born, launched in Italy with a completely new recipe. This is where oranges were introduced, used to change both the flavor and color. Modern Fanta in the US is made from orange and citrus fruit juice, as well as high fructose corn syrup.

But in 2017, Fanta changed the recipe again in the UK. They reduced their sugar content by 33% and substituted this with artificial sweeteners. Sugar was lowered to just 0.16oz per 3.3 fluid ounces , where previously it had 0.24oz.

This move was spurred on by the UK’s announced tax on sugar, which came into effect in 2018. This created a levy fee, which would apply to drinks with a total 0.17oz of sugar per 3.3 fluid ounces. The company knew what they had to do; and at the expense of its great, sugary taste for their UK consumers, they chose to keep their taxes as low as possible.

Lucky Charms Shrinkflation

Sweet treats for breakfast are definitely a guilty pleasure: donuts, Poptarts, but Lucky Charms may be the sweetest and guiltiest of them all, that’s why we love them! The colorful marshmallow bits have always been the best part, too, but they’ve gone through their fair share of changes.

Originally, the cereal was put to market in 1964 and included pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars and green clovers. After 1975, however, producer General Mills changed up the charms and has continued to do so.

Whether you’ve noticed or not is the key, I’m willing to bet many people were as oblivious to it as I was! Blue diamonds were added in ‘75, purple horseshoes in ’83, red balloons in ’89, rainbows in ’92, and so on. General Mills phased different marshmallows in and out of their cereal like a baseball team switches out their batters.

But this was more than just a fun bonus, it helped sales grow and appealed to children who recognized the updated charms coming in and out of play. But most crucially, in 2021, the company shrunk family sized packs down from 19.3oz to 18.1oz.

Shrinkflation strikes again! This wasn’t the only cereal in the General Mills family to get the shrinking treatment, though. They elongated boxes of Cocoa Puffs to make you think you’re getting more than usual in the taller boxes, but in reality, they also reduced them from 19 to 18oz. The same fate befell my personal favorite, the almighty Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Dominos Change

If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s pizza. Dominos is a go-to when you need a great tasting pie any day of the week. You might think it’s tasted exactly the same over the years, but you'll be shocked to learn that it doesn’t actually taste how it used to!

Apparently, in 2008, Dominos transformed their pizza recipe for the better after consumers consistently complained about the lack of quality. Grievances ranged from the tomato sauce likened to ketchup, to the dough crust possessing the texture of cardboard. Astonishingly, the company actually listened!

Dominos spent 18 months trialing every ingredient together and testing new pizza combinations to improve their menu. After they had found the perfect formula, popularity grew, and this time the praise wasn’t just reserved for their quick delivery service, their pizzas were a hit! Their store sales rose by 10%, and now they’re the largest pizza chain in the world delivering over a million a day!

Founded in 1960 in a small store in Michigan, Dominos now takes a huge $17 billion slice out of the pizza industry, and it’s all thanks to us, the complaining consumer. Maybe other companies could learn a thing or two from them.

Taco Bell Change

If you’re going to eat a Taco Bell, you have to get their nachos. And with every nacho, you need their cheese sauce to dip them in. But if you thought it looked different to how you remember it, you’re not going crazy.

Taco Bell removed one key ingredient from their cheese sauce in 2015, to make it look different than before. Like Kraft, they also switched out artificial dyes like yellow 6 and replaced them with natural flavorings. This is why the melted cheese doesn’t have that signature shade of bright orange anymore!

Some believed the swap permanently changed the taste of the sauce, which is the worst thing a food company can do. This changeover went further than the nacho cheese; however, a staggering 95% of the Taco Bell food menu was affected, with the avocado ranch dressing and red tortilla chips also losing their vibrant colorings. Again, it sounds like the company thought it would be healthier to use natural dyes than artificial ones, without realizing how much it could affect their products!

Breyers’ Recipe Change

Breyer’s ice cream founded all the way back in 1866 in Pennsylvania, have been sneakily changing their recipe since 2006 to include more ingredients, so much so that it can no longer be legally classed as ice cream.

Ice cream has at least 10% dairy fat, but Breyer’s went for lower fat options, and now it contains up to 40 ingredients. These include corn syrup, carrageenan, a red seaweed used to thicken food, and diglycerides, an emulsifier. Breyers claims this enhances the flavor, but many wished for the old recipe back.

But what’s worse is that the company claimed this change was all thanks to the customers! Apparently, we all wanted a smoother texture, which was what drove them to make the changes. In reality, it’s more likely this was a cost-cutting move stemming from Unilever buying Breyers up; a company famous for reformulating recipes with food additives.

They already made bad choices by shrinking their tub sizes in 2008, what other horrors could they have in store for us ice cream lovers? A half-gallon tub shrinks down to 56oz, then 48oz, and they expect us to go along with it?

Campbells Soup Changes

When people are ill, it’s straight to chicken soup to help us feel better. And if you’re going to have chicken soup, it’s got to be Campbell’s. Their chicken noodle is just perfect when you’re fighting off a cold. But the company decided to take our health concerns even further by removing ingredients from their soup!

These included flavorings such as MSG, a food additive used to enhance flavor, soybean oil, and cornstarch. With more customers aware of what they’re consuming, these were changed to fall in line with the consumer’s health concerns. But they also removed onions? And celery? Those are healthy vegetables, you'd think that’s what Campbells wanted to keep.

There may be another reason for the switch. Global soup sales had fallen consistently since 2012, including a 5% decrease for Campbell’s, which may have prompted them to cut back on funding all the ingredients. All in all, Campbell’s actually cut down their 30-ingredient recipe to just 20 in 2015. Well, there’s tweaking a recipe, and then there’s completely remaking it!

Airwaves Shrinkflation

Gum is great. When you accidentally leave your house without brushing your teeth, it’s your on-demand toothpaste. When you have a date, it keeps your breath minty fresh. But sadly, shrinkflation has affected this too. Increasingly, companies have started to tack on an ‘easy to grip’ tab on their packets, robbing you of one or two gum pieces.

The grip tab is one of the most blatant cases of shrinkflation I’ve ever seen. And when they’re not putting pointless grips on your packets, they’re physically shrinking them down instead. Trident has reduced it from 18 sticks to 14. And this atrocity from Airwaves! They’re not even trying to hide it anymore!

Dessert Shrinkflation

If you thought Breyer’s frozen dairy dessert was bad, the next facts will shock you to your core. Food companies have come up with some very clever ways of cheating you out of your ice cream, from shrinking them down to deliberately giving you less! This Tillamook tub will make you angry, with their 1.75-quart carton cut down to 1.5. That’s a 17% decrease in ice cream for the exact same price!

But there’s more. Someone’s ice cream has a whole empty shell around it instead of being filled to the top.

And Klondike bars, they used to be so big and chunky, but now they look as flat as an old tire. These chocolate covered ice cream bars were once advertised as being too big for a stick, but now it looks like they might need one or they’ll fall apart!

Doritos Shrinkflation

As a snack, or sometimes as a whole meal, Doritos chips and dip is the answer. But you must have noticed the difference in size in the last few years! A bag that used to weigh 9.75oz is now 9.25oz, with an average of five less chips in every pack, according to Frito-Lay.

These changes were first announced in 2022, and customers have since found little change in price. Flamin’ Hot Cool Ranch chips at 9.25oz were being sold for $5.59, the same price as Flamin’ Hot Nacho Cheese at 9.75oz.

Another way they cheat you is by advertising a bigger bag, but they just give you the same amount of product in that bigger bag as there is in a regular one. 17oz in each, but approximately 30 cents more for the ‘sharing’ version.

Reese’s Shrinkflation

Peanut butter and chocolate; the greatest combination of flavors on earth. And who does it better than Reese’s? Founded in 1928, they’ve quickly become one of the best-selling candy brands in the US, and receive over $2bn in sales each year.

But the company has slowly been reducing the sizes of their products, and now we’re finally starting to notice. The standard peanut butter cup was originally 0.9oz, but in 1991, they were reduced to 0.8oz. It didn’t last too long before the cup sizes were reduced again in 2001 to 0.75oz. As a result, the classic 2-pack in 1980 was 1.6oz, but in 2022, they were 1.5oz instead, marking a 7% decrease.

But it’s not just the cups. The Reese’s Christmas cane is definitely a few pieces short. The company has used the label to sneakily disguise the gaps inside the tube.

One Redditor also spotted a difference in their Reese’s Pieces bought only weeks apart in February 2023. The right packet is 6oz, but the left has been downsized to 5.3!

By the time its 2050, will they have shrunk down even further? Maybe the regular cups will become the snack sizes, and the snack sizes become the mini’s, and the mini’s will just disappear. It’s a modern horror story in the making!

If you were amazed at these foods that secretly changed you might want to read about the sneakiest business tactics you never noticed scamming you! Thanks for reading.