Consumerism

The Consumer “Kiss Goodbye”

The top 4 dearly-loved products that disappeared after I backed them

In the U.S., the customer is always right! Right? Well, that has not necessarily been true in my experience. I have invested my interest and income in supporting certain food sold at restaurants and in stores, only to find those products eventually disappear from the menu or shelves. These revelations are even more profound because I typically order the same item from the menu, so the absence is magnified. For items in stores, the anxiety of searching for my favorite product heightens while noticing it’s been discontinued only because adjacent goods have shifted to occupy the spot my target had vacated. No notice ahead of time. Here are four of my favorite foods that have faded into the consumer ether.

• The Shaved Prime Rib sandwich was my go-to choice at Culver’s Restaurant. I liked it dressed with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and onions which only boosted the savory flavor of the thinly sliced Prime Rib. I was thoroughly confused when this sandwich was dropped from the menu. There has been nothing else on the menu that comes close to this tasteful selection!

• Nabisco’s Strawberry Newtons is the next product that eludes me. When I mention finding them, I typically get the clarifying response “Fig Newtons?” Um,… no! Those are hardly appealing to me. Unfortunately, fig seems to be Nabisco’s flagship flavor at the local grocery stores since that is assuredly stocked on shelves after periodic Newton cullings. When was the last time you had a bowl of figs? Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Also, I’ve tried an off-brand substitute for Strawberry Newtons, but the aftertaste almost choked me into unconsciousness! Ugh!

• A recent ephemeral product I was attracted to was Breyers Cinnabon Ice Cream. Whenever I travel, I ensure to visit a Cinnabon location to pick up a few rolls. I was elated when I discovered that they partnered with Breyers for this delicious ice cream! Once again, it was easy to find at a local grocery store…until it wasn’t. That spike of anxiety crept into my spirit as I searched down the ice cream aisle in one store…then the next. I thought I had an inside track at a store where I normally don’t shop, but it wasn’t stocked with the Breyers Cinnabon Ice Cream flavor on my recent visit. Frozen out, again!

• The final food banished to this list…until recently…is Popeyes Cajun Rice. In February 2021, Popeyes announced that it was discontinuing this food on its menu. I was dumbstruck. In this case, there was almost an immediate backlash from the market about this decision. Social media users set Twitter on fire with their questions to Popeyes as to why this decision was made. Apparently, that blaze set the management at Popeyes to task with market surveys, because the restaurant has recently returned Cajun Rice to the menu. Yay!!!

These are a few of the items that I’ve had to struggle to buy in order to satisfy my appetite. I’m sure there were others, like the perennially broken Mcdonald's ice cream machine. Those strawberry sundaes had me saying “I’m Lovin’ It!”…when the machine was functioning. Then, after the hiatus of the ice cream machine, the strawberry topping was eliminated from the offerings. This is the granddaddy of all of my broken choices. Amazon could possibly rectify the supply chain issues of one or two of them. Still, I have learned to live with the probability that I need to kiss goodbye to the selections I love.

Share how you have been disappointed by shrinking menus or shelf selections in the comments!

References:

“Popeyes Fans Still Livid Over Popular Item’s Removal From Menu”, Pop Culture, found at https://popculture.com/trending/news/popeyes-fans-livid-cajun-rice-removed-menu/