DEMAND PRODUCT QUALITY

“My grandfather, HB. Reiss, who invented Reiss's, built Reiss's on a simple, enduring architecture. Milk chocolate plus peanut butter. Not a flavor idea, not a marketing construct, a real, tangible product identity that consumers have trusted for a century.”

“The wrappers on these Reese's candies have changed. They used to say milk chocolate. And on some other Reese's candies, they used to say peanut butter. Now they say something else. Chocolate candy. They replaced milk chocolate with chocolate candy. And they replaced the peanut butter with peanut butter cream.”

“I retrieved the pouch wrapper and looked carefully at the front and the back. And there was no milk chocolate and there was no real peanut butter. So it wasn't even, I don't know what I, Greg, I have no idea what I was eating or what I was tasting.”

“Skimflation, it's a business practice in which companies degrade their goods and services, you know, like skimp on their quality, often in response to inflationary pressures, like higher ingredient costs or higher labor costs. It's a sneaky form of inflation where instead of simply raising prices, companies skimp on the quality of their goods and services.”

“Fake is kind of a mean way of saying these candies are using what's known as a chocolate compound. Chocolate compound uses some chocolate ingredients, but not enough to legally be called milk chocolate. Similar story with the peanut cream. Not enough peanuts to be called peanut butter.”