When Keyana Sapp, 31, went shopping for a new backpack, the brands he remembered as a kid were just not the same.

He researched the companies, from North Face to JanSport and Eastpak, and soon realized they were all owned by the VF Corporation after a wave of acquisitions in the 2000s. After a Reddit post he made about his discovery picked up traction, he started looking at other types of consumer goods – cookware, shoes, tools, clothing.

“It seems like that was a story that just repeated in every industry,” Sapp told the Guardian.

  • Z745812939054@lemmy.zip
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    23 hours ago

    i first noticed this years ago when some soap company bought breyer’s ice cream.

    breyer’s used to be one of the best, turned to shit overnight

    • cenzorrll@piefed.ca
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      4 hours ago

      I feel like breyers was specifically bought in order to turn it to shit, because This used to be their ad.

    • MasterBlaster@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 hours ago

      Indeed. They used to make ice cream. Now they make “flavored frozen treats”. The only one I would consider buying is the “natural vanilla” because it is actually ice cream, but the shrinkflation is so massive it’s extremely obvious just looking at it.

    • EchoCranium@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      Used to be ice cream, is now called something like “frozen dairy dessert”. Their strawberry ice cream used to be really great: milk, cream, sugar, egg, strawberry. That’s it. Now it’s a couple dozen weird ingredients that they can’t call ice cream, and it’s awful.

      • INeedANewUserName@piefed.social
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        12 hours ago

        Yeah there are minimum fat contents to legally be called ice CREAM… cream is expensive… ice milk is less so etc. it isn’t necessarily bad if that is what you are expecting can be a lower fat alternative but if you have years of experience and the fat content suddenly drops… bye bye customers. Grew up in a Bryers house hold… we don’t purchase Bryers anymore.

        edit I see claims that Bryers does still sell Ice Cream along side their frozen dairy desserts but the average shopper isn’t likely to recognize the difference… now I might have go looking and pick up a tub.

    • solrize@lemmy.ml
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      22 hours ago

      turned to shit overnight

      Literally? I guess it’s possible, but I’d have expected it to turn to soap instead.