It’s not just you, foods are getting worse

March 18, 2026 by
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I’ve written before about how I think butter has changed in recent years, and not for the better. The shift to feeding cows more palm oil products (probably alongside other feed and nutrition changes) has resulted – in my opinion – in butter that is greasier and harder at room temperature. Butter is not the only food product that has become worse as companies look for ways to save money, however. The list is long and growing.

In 2017, Nutella’s parent company admitted that it changed the formula for the iconic spread, using less cocoa and more skimmed milk powder. According to fans, Oreo cookies have become softer and the filling sweeter. A quick Google search offers up dozens more examples of people complaining that a once beloved food now tastes wrong or has a different texture. The latest casualty in the seemingly inexorable march to the bottom is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and other Reese’s products, according to Brad Reese, the grandson of the original inventor of the iconic peanut butter cup.

Peanut butter cup turkey cookies from Bake at 350 by Bridget Edwards

In a LinkedIn post last month, Reese says that Hershey’s has replaced key ingredients with lesser quality substitutes: the milk chocolate is now a compound coating, and the peanut butter filling also got tweaked. He says these changes have diminished the brand. “Reese’s became iconic because my grandfather built it on real ingredients and real integrity,” Reese wrote in a later LinkedIn post.

Hershey’s provided a statement to CBS News that said the company sometimes makes “product recipe adjustments,” but defended Peanut Butter Cups, saying they “are made the same way they always have been.” The company also said that the “product recipe adjustments that allow us to make new shapes, sizes and innovations that Reese’s fans have come to love and ask for, while always protecting the essence of what makes Reese’s unique and special.” However, Brad Reese isn’t buying Hershey’s argument, saying that people often tell him that Reese’s products don’t taste as good as they used to. He suggests that Hershey’s heed the company’s founder, Milton Hershey, who said “Give them quality, that’s the best advertising.”

Category: Antipasto

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12 Comments

  • janecooksamiracle  on  March 19, 2026

    When you can leave an Ice Cream Sandwich out overnight on the worktop without it melting ! You know something has changed 😂

  • Indio32  on  March 19, 2026

    UK dairy farmers are going bust at record rates. Reuters are reporting that UK milk prices are down 40% since October. Are people seeing reduced prices? Nope in fact prices are going up. The BBC recently reported using the headline “Bitter times for Cacao farmers as chocolate market slumps” interestingly Waitrose was just had another price hike of nearly 10% on its 70% cacao bars.
    Its interesting how farmers are being paid a pittance and customers are paying through the nose that supermarkets are consistently posting record profits.

  • Kinhawaii  on  March 19, 2026

    Extremely disappointing. I don’t eat the above very often- I thought my tastes were just changing with age & years of baking.

  • Foodycat  on  March 19, 2026

    Interesting observation on the butter – I had been thinking they are adding more water to European butter, as it’s softer from the fridge and seems to sputter a lot more when you melt it.

  • KarenGlad  on  March 19, 2026

    The same with Canadian butter. Just had this conversation with my niece when she requested a cookie recipe that has been a family favourite for now 4 generations and how to tweak it because they don’t turn out the way they used to.

  • KaylinE  on  March 19, 2026

    Another example for why it’s so important to support your local food system, and even shop directly from farmers when you can.

  • Rinshin  on  March 19, 2026

    Butter has certainly changed. Stays harder at room temperature, lighter color and less flavor. Milk tasted so much better 40+ plus years ago, and now poor chicken and pork quality. Only pork I can now buy that tastes ok are Berkshire or kurobuta pork.

  • smartie101  on  March 19, 2026

    My staple product for graham crackers are now horrible. Taste like cardboard. Alas.

  • breakthroughc  on  March 19, 2026

    I hadn’t had a Reese peanut butter cup in ages, but bought some last Christmas and thought they tasted horrible. Lesser quality chocolate and waxy texture. Add Girl Scout cookies to the list. My Thin Mints this year lack the chocolate flavor and are not very good.

  • mzgourmand  on  March 22, 2026

    Whenever I have a guilty junk food moment, they all taste dreadful. For a while, I thought it was my aging palate but then realized that ALL Hershey’s just tastes like a slick of nasty, artificial sweetness without even a pretense of chocolate.
    And when I bought Lindt in duty free two weeks ago, it just tasted mediocre Hershey’s one or two iterations back. I have to say that surprised me-I kept thinking I was tasting it wrong somehow! The one I miss the most is Oreos. I don’t know what those things they sell are now, but they are not Oreos.

  • gamulholland  on  March 22, 2026

    See’s Candies always, always taste the same. I really hope they stay like that. Oh, and In N Out Burger. And yeah, I live in Southern California. 🙂

  • Nancith  on  March 28, 2026

    I find Ritz crackers to be a poor imitation of their former glory–they used to be firmer (“everything is better when it sits on a Ritz”), crunchier, more flavorful. Now the crackers are very crumbly and pale. So annoying. I also think produce has changed–several years ago we shopped at a tiny store in rural Kentucky & got the best broccoli ever, flavorful & with stems that needed no peeling to be edible. Not so with broccoli in most stores in the city. Probably due to trying to make it more insect impervious.

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