why do companies do this? Fairy Liquid changing its formula.

[loveyouradvice]

It does not make sense to me...people love the product because of what it is, and then they change it? Do they think people won't notice?

I've bought Fairy Liquid for literally decades and never wanted to use anything else - I'd go out of my way to buy it. Now... they've lost me.

Cost and profit

Cost, profit, advancement in science. There are loads of reasons why and many times it will go unnoticed. You haven’t noticed the changes they have made over past decades, plenty of people won’t notice this change.

If they can find a way to make more money then they will do that. They might lose some people but not enough to impact the profits.

Companies that don’t keep an eye on their profits risk not surviving. The massive UK company my dh works for is going under right now. He knows because he works in the finance department but it’s going to be a real shock for most of the employees . WThey employ so many people, many who have been working for that company for decades. In the town where the headquarters is, they employ half the town.

This is the case across the board. Paint, clothes etc all reduced to lowest common denominator in order to make profit and now rendered crap.

I’m not going mad then, it’s not as good as it used to be?

I put a squirt in the sink yesterday and got virtually no bubbles and wondered what was going on.

I’m with you OP - it’s double the price of other edging up liquids but I’ve always paid it because you use less of it. If that’s not the case any more I’ll just buy a cheap one. I hear Aldi’s is good.

I've found exactly the same. I'm going back to supermarket own brand.

Everything is worse quality I think.
I haven’t bought fairy liquid for years though, I use Aldi and it’s great

Fairy has been rubbish for a while now. I’ve tried various different brands and supermarkets, Waitrose own seems to be the best.

I don't use this, but guess it's the same as everything else, particularly foodstuffs, in that they are substituting cheaper ingredients to make more profit. Just use Lidl or Aldi own brand, works fine.

I use Lidl's own brand which is brilliant. They even do refillable bags too. W5.

Cadbury is the really big, noticeable one for me.

Their chocolate used to taste so amazing; if they'd kept the original recipe, a lot of the 'luxury' brands that have sprung up since would probably never have gained any foothold in the market, or even actually bothered in the first place.

Often it's 'death by a thousand cuts', whereby they shave off a tiny little corner here, a tiny little corner there, all to reduce their costs and increase their profits a bit; then it becomes an obsession and they see providing any kind of quality above the bare minimum where the majority of customers won't stop buying their product as them being fools to themselves and throwing away money.

Overall, their balance sheet goes up a little bit, so that makes it all worthwhile. Unimportant little people like you or I and millions of others who actually make their companies so successful are nothing but an irrelevant cog in their workings, as long as the sales keep coming in.

I do sometimes think that, if some of these companies that spend hundreds of millions each year on advertising their brand as supposedly being 'the best' (even when it's so obviously not true) started advertising a lot less and putting that money into making much better quality products that people would eagerly want to make a beeline for, we'd all be a lot happier.

I agree; but it gets very annoying when Lidl and Aldi start to do the same thing too.

We used to only ever buy Lidl cheap toilet roll, as it was very decent quality and long-lasting for the price. They reduced the thickness and quality significantly, so we've never bought it since after the last pack when we discovered what they'd done.

I changed to co op own brand when Ecover put their prices up. It's as good as old school Fairy. (and a lot cheaper).

Ah ha!! I didn’t know this but have been wondering why the original Fairy is now so watery and rubbish. Was wondering if it was fake! I won’t be buying again, thanks for clearing up.

It isn’t always greed. It can be driven by stricter environmental or health. legislation. Paint and paint stripper are good examples of this.

Petrol is another one. It performed better with lead in it as a fuel for motor vehicles, but at the expense of public health.

Thank you ... esp @Elbowpatch, that's really interesting.

Off to try some own brands now! Makes me a bit sad... Fairy Liquid is probably the only product I remember from childhood....everyone in our family using...

I have noticed while using Fairy Liquid that the plates are often smeary and greasy after I've washed them, I have to rinse them under a tap again, so from now on I will try a supermarket own brand such as the ones suggested - Co Op, Waitrose or Lidl.

Perhaps Fairy changed when the adverts did - a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you catch my drift.

Re SprayWhiteDung, I agree about the degrading of chocolate - was that down to Palm Oil being used or something? And/Or a change in ownership of Cacbury's or Nestle? There have been threads about it. I do buy chocolate from time to time - Wispa (said to be unchanged), Freddo Frogs (also said to use the old formula), Flake (still looks good but basically it's a sugar hit) but never Dairy Milk bars, Whole Nut or any of that. It makes a profit for Lindt chocolate, esp the Mint bars, as they retain their quality and are preferable, but they are now very expensive and the last I read, the Chocolate Santas aren't what they used to be.

I will add to this national tragedy - jam doughnuts. They are not what they were, either in Sainsbury's or Gregg's. So I don't buy them now, they used to be a bona fide treat. I've heard they're made differently - in the oven rather than fried. Healthier, to be sure, but unless you are forced to eat them daily, I'm not sure who benefits.

On the other hand, we get lots of British flags along our high street.