There’s nothing quite like a recipe change to upset some people.
Who could forget the New Coke debacle? Or, more recently, the ire Cadbury faced after it changed the recipe of its iconic Creme Eggs?
The latest food brand to be caught up in a recipe controversy is Jammie Dodgers, which has just been relaunched by Burton’s (as reported last week by The Grocer). The relaunch involves a new recipe that includes milk protein, making Dodgers no longer suitable for vegans and those avoiding dairy. Cue a petition to demand the recipe changes be reversed, which (at the time of writing) has received nearly 4,500 signatures.
Reformulations that change the allergen profile of a product and therefore make it impossible to consume for people who were previously able to enjoy it are understandably unpopular, but most recipe ‘scandals’ are about something far less tangible.
Food is emotional stuff. People are fiercely loyal to their favourite brands and fiercely protective of the tastes they’ve come to love (especially if it involves products that, like Creme Eggs or Jammie Dodgers, are often closely connected to childhood memories).
Brands mess with this at their peril.
If, that is, consumers actually notice the changes.
In the US, Kraft is currently running an eyecatching social media campaign that cleverly plays on what many fmcg executives must have quietly suspected all along: that people get upset when you tell them a recipe has changed but don’t really notice the difference if you don’t.
Having reformulated its Mac & Cheese to remove artificial flavours, preservatives and dyes at the end of last year, Kraft is now coming clean using the tongue-in-cheek Twitter hashtag #didntnotice.
“We quietly changed our Mac & Cheese in December. Share if you #didntnotice,” reads one tweet.
Another informs punters 55,000 people tweeted about squirrels on Squirrel Appreciation Day (21 January, since you’re asking) while no-one tweeted about Kraft’s new recipe. Why? Because they #didntnotice.
Keeping quiet about recipe changes can be a risky strategy (it can easily feed into the ‘Big Food doing nasty things behind your back’ narrative, for example), but it’s worked for Kraft because the company has done something that’s hard to criticise: cleaning up Mac & Cheese by taking out artificial ingredients.
If the new and improved Mac & Cheese will ultimately score at the tills as well as on social media, of course, remains to be seen. But as many brand owners face having to reformulate products to satisfy public health agendas (especially around sugar and salt reduction), Kraft’s disruptive comms strategy should act as inspiration: don’t be apologetic about the changes you’re making – own them.
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