![\"altoids-new-tin.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/legacy\/altoids-new-tin.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I’ve eaten so many Altoids<\/a> peppermints over the years I could probably build a house out of the empty tins. Unfortunately, if I ever want to build an extension to that house I’ll need to find a new candy.<\/p>\n A few days ago I noticed that all the Altoids tins at my local Trader Joe’s had a new “old-timey” look to them, so I bought a tin to see if anything else had changed. Unfortunately, it had. The cosmetics are similar (perhaps even nicer), though the Callard & Bowser logo has been replaced by a note that says “Originally prepared by Callard & Bowser.”<\/i> In itself that’s not as ominous as it sounds \u2014 the Altoids brand was purchased by Wrigley<\/a> last year, but Callard & Bowser has been owned by Kraft and a number of other large corporations over the years and the quality hasn’t suffered under them. However, the big difference is in the ingredients list. Old ingredients: Sugar, Oil of Peppermint, Gum Arabic, Gelatin, Corn Syrup<\/i>. New ingredients: Sugar, Gum Arabic, Artificial Flavor, Oil of Peppermint, Gelatin, Glucose Syrup<\/i>. And the little piece of paper inside the tin that used to say “To this day, Callard & Bowser continues to make ALTOIDS\u00ae to the original recipe developed more than 200 years ago”<\/i> now bears the foreboding warning “Today, all ALTOIDS\u00ae varieties including Peppermint, Wintergreen Spearmint, Licorice, and Ginger are made to the same exacting standards as the original ALTOIDS\u00ae recipe developed more than 200 years ago.”<\/i> Uh oh.<\/p>\n With some trepidation I tried one. I’ve had two more since then, each time thinking maybe my taste buds were just out of whack, but no… the curiously strong mints are now a thing of the past. I’ve been trying to foist the rest of the tin off on coworkers, but I think they’re on to me now. Personally I don’t blame them \u2014 the experience is similar to chewing on those little sample tubes of Crest toothpaste.<\/p>\n I’m still hoping this is some sort of joke \u2014 a cheap knock-off counterfeit smuggled into Trader Joe’s regular shipment, perhaps? I haven’t seen any news or announcement from Wrigley about a change, though they have recently noted that profits on Altoids has been disappointing<\/a> since the brand was purchased last year, blaming “limited marketing and innovation support<\/a>“. I can only assume they feel that when it comes to their product, it’s the cost-to-manufacture, the brand and advertising they need to focus on \u2014 quality can be sacrificed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve eaten so many Altoids<\/a> peppermints over the years I could probably build a house out of the empty tins. Unfortunately, if I ever want to build an extension to that house I’ll need to find a new candy.<\/p>\n A few days ago I noticed that all the Altoids tins at my local Trader Joe’s had a new “old-timey” look to them, so I bought a tin to see if anything else had changed. Unfortunately, it had. The cosmetics are similar (perhaps even nicer), though the Callard & Bowser logo has been replaced by a note that says “Originally prepared by Callard & Bowser.”<\/i> In itself that’s not as ominous as it sounds \u2014 the Altoids brand was purchased by Wrigley<\/a> last year, but Callard & Bowser has been owned by Kraft and a number of other large corporations over the years and the quality hasn’t suffered under them. However, the big difference is in the ingredients list. Old ingredients: Sugar, Oil of Peppermint, Gum Arabic, Gelatin, Corn Syrup<\/i>. New ingredients: Sugar, Gum Arabic, Artificial Flavor, Oil of Peppermint, Gelatin, Glucose Syrup<\/i>. And the little piece of paper inside the tin that used to say “To this day, Callard & Bowser continues to make ALTOIDS\u00ae to the original recipe developed more than 200 years ago”<\/i> now bears the foreboding warning “Today, all ALTOIDS\u00ae varieties including Peppermint, Wintergreen Spearmint, Licorice, and Ginger are made to the same exacting standards as the original ALTOIDS\u00ae recipe developed more than 200 years ago.”<\/i> Uh oh.<\/p>\n With some trepidation I tried one. I’ve had two more since then, each time thinking maybe my taste buds were just out of whack, but no… the curiously strong mints are now a thing of the past. I’ve been trying to foist the rest of the tin off on coworkers, but I think they’re on to me now. Personally I don’t blame them \u2014 the experience is similar to chewing on those little sample tubes of Crest toothpaste.<\/p>\n I’m still hoping this is some sort of joke \u2014 a cheap knock-off counterfeit smuggled into Trader Joe’s regular shipment, perhaps? I haven’t seen any news or announcement from Wrigley about a change, though they have recently noted that profits on Altoids has been disappointing<\/a> since the brand was purchased last year, blaming “limited marketing and innovation support<\/a>“. I can only assume they feel that when it comes to their product, it’s the cost-to-manufacture, the brand and advertising they need to focus on \u2014 quality can be sacrificed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n