It's what happened with Bassets Winegums. Used to be my absolute favourite candy. Wife came back from the UK with a box,I opened it and the taste was... Different. Googled - turns out they changed the recipe after being purchased by some large conglomerate. I haven't had one of their candies since 13 years ago. Fucking idiots.

Well if they all do it, who are ya gonna run to?

The New Coke fiasco begs to differ.

The cynic in me imagines that they switch away from real chocolate, everyone will hate it, they'll release a new product line that proclaims it uses real chocolate, but charge a premium for it, and people will buy it.

I think we’re talking about very old brands that sell in big numbers because they’ve locked in grocery store shelf space and Halloween combo bag deals. It’s not like every sale is made after a careful taste test.

Boomers with practically no taste buds left will still buy these to hand out to trick or treaters because they remember them being good 40 years ago. Meanwhile the manufacturer can add millions in profit by shaving costs here and there, because they operate at such huge volume. Their brand is mature and their market is saturated. They can’t really grow sales anymore so all they can do to juice profits is cut costs.

I’m not justifying their way of thinking, just saying this is why they don’t behave as if every single candy must taste amazing. Their profits keep chugging without that. And if you aren’t growing profits, you’re dead. So blame capitalism for the underlying reasons for why they can’t just leave well enough alone.

That's what happened to me and Oreo's during the switch from soy oil to trans-fat-free oils. They were NASTY during that transition.

That doesn't sound like this quarter's problem, or even next quarter's problem. In fact, that doesn't even sound like the quarter after that's problem.

Stupidity and short term money.