Turning products upside down in supermarket

Why would they be kicked out?

I doubt if many products on our supermarket shelves are labelled as the produce of the USA. Tesco sometimes sells overpriced children's cereals such as Lucky Charms or Froot Loops full of unhealthy ingredients. Nobody likes Hersheys chocolate which has the aroma of fresh vomit.

Sweet potatoes mostly come from the USA. A few other fruit and veg do too, sometimes, e.g. Medjool Dates. But at a pinch I could do without those.

The only chcolate bar in my entire life that I didn't finish was, alas, a Hershey bar.

Thought they mostly came from Africa. Cornflakes are prolly American tho

The problem then, when discussing things like this, is not confusing the identity of a thing due to local practice. Rather than read the label for these particular items (the label invariably being correct), we sight-identify the item and buy them. The root items for example, are easily identified as "a lot of work". Whereas sweet potato, you can be quite lazy about their preparation (slice it so it will cook, microwave it, dish out the flesh).

The consistency can range from starchy to sweet, and then part of your job is not buying something that isn't going to cook up nice. The smaller ones may taste a bit better than the huge ones.

You can mash the flesh and stir in a bit of butter. Not enough butter to make a butter soup.

I haven't had those for several years now. I would have to go up to the other store (further away) to get some.

Paul

Kelloggs still make breakfast cereals, including cornflakes, in their factory in Old Trafford, Manchester - although it is due to close next year.

With production due to move to their Wrexham factory.

Most of the breakfast cereals sold in the USA have ingredients (mainly food colouring and additives) that are banned in the UK and Europe so what you will find on UK supermarket shelves is a different product albeit may be sharing the same name. I doubt very much that boxes of breakfast cereals are actually shipped from the USA but manufactured somewhere in Europe. The raw ingredients may come from the USA.

It wouldn't be a bad thing to boycott many breakfast cereals, at least it would take vast amounts of sugar from your diet.

I first encountered both sweet potatoes, yams, and an alarming variety of squashes in Africa.

As well as corn meal. Maize replaced millet as the staple diet of Africa some years ago. I don't actually like any of them very much.

As far as food goes, apart from Cornflakes, I don't actually buy anything from Europe OR America much. Most of the exotic fruit and veg comes from S America or Africa..

And UK greenhouse production is increasing and is excellent

N America is a long way away and if it wants to play silly buggers over commonly available commodity products, it can do so on its own.

Yes, but my guess is that its American maize they use. Its a very very big export product in the US compared with - say - Africa.

Yes, that was largely my point. US mid west grows soybeans and maize almost exclusively.

Don't think cornflakes are THAT bad.

UK Green Giant uses French maize, so Kelloggs may not use US.

Fair point. I'd forgotten it grows well in southern Europe

It's illegal for any branch of government (such as local councils) to implement any international boycott unless central government has done so. This is often (maybe always) included in council contracts too. In effect, no branch of government are allowed to have their own policies on international matters.

Cranberries, and Orange Juice made from concentrate in large quantities.

I have cranberries on my breakfast cereal every morning for the polyphenols. I have tended to avoid US ones because they're usually sickly sweet, often with added sugar. I don't need added sugar.

Sun Maid Raisins. I won't be buying any more of them. That will learn them! TW

Well, come now.

The product aisle is split, between "candy" and "cereal".

Froot Loops is not "cereal", it is a candy product. of course it has Red Number 78 in it, Purple Number 43, and it makes kids crazy if they eat some. The kids throw it in the cart, mom calmly puts it back on the shelf.

There are products with too much sugar in them, which are not "candy by design", which lack artificial colours.

And finally, a small number of products which are "plain". There might be one Cheerios box, which isn't over-loaded with sugar.

Since the boxes are small, the prices high, nobody buys that stuff. You can stand in the aisle and watch, and nobody is buying it. When they cut the volume of the Harvest Crunch boxes by 50%, sales stopped... instantly.

"What is the number 1 selling breakfast cereal?

Today, the largest cereal brand in the United States is Cheerios, with a revenue of $18.126 billion and 139.1 million boxes sold in 2021."

And it is unlikely that all Cheerio SKUs are as popular as one another.

Corn flakes ? The popularity of that died with the Beverly Hillbillies TV series. If you asked a person here about that, the answer you would receive, would be about as informed as the answer to the question "what ever happened to Bran Buds". Which was a cereal product, claimed to be good for your digestive system, which was really inert and purpose-less. That one never had sugar. I think it's gone as a product. Because it never had sugar. That's why.

The buying public here, is pretty savvy about "candy", "frosted sugar bombs", and "plain cereal". And if you ask people what happens when you eat Froot Loops, everyone will correctly answer on the physiological symptoms (big bug eyes, jumping on the sofa, and that's just the dad doing that).

Paul

How big are those boxes ?

Their accounting firm, isn't very good at arithmetic :-)

The dollar figure, could be a world-wide revenue converted to USD, and the box count might be USA-only. If I was forced to guess.

The boxes would be on the order of $5 USD. They are the large boxes.

It only has good sales, because it isn't Froot Loops.

And on occasion, it has capped the retail price, rather than going on a never-ending spiral upwards. That helps with the volume of sales. If it did price increases at the same rate as the other cereals, people would stop buying it.

With an item like a Froot Loop, the box would never be 3" deep. It might be 1.5" deep, and the buyer upon picking up the box and handling it, realizes that shrink-flation is placing a single bowl of "candy" inside the box. That's another reason it won't sell, as it would not last very long.

What's puzzling, is how they can afford to buy shelf space, yet sales are so low. In the store I use, the cereal shelf is about 50% of the size it used to be, but not all the store chains have made that much of an adjustment. Maybe in 1960, there was big and small boxes of Froot Loops, and now there would only be small boxes. Which saves on your shelf space buy.

Even the Cheereos have suffered. Sometimes not all their SKUs are on the shelf. One of the products might be missing. Maybe the small Cheereos have gone missing, leaving the 778g one.

Paul

I have turned products upside down in my local supermarket. I told the assistant what I was doing and why. She told the other staff, and probably any customers who asked. Don't do it to things that are likely to fall over or leak, that is not fair on the shop or the staff, but boxes and cans are stable.