This is really disturbing. It made me rethink who I'm following.. I'm going to go through my feed, with a good cup of Hill Brothers cappachino mix (my favourite is the classic!) and really look hard at who's worth keeping in my followed list.
I jest but isn't that drink something:
Sugar, Nondairy Creamer (Partially Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Soybean Oil, Corn Syrup Solids, Sodium Caseinate (a Milk Derivative), Dipotassium Phosphate, Sugar, Mono and Diglycerides, Silicon Dioxide, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Soy Lecithin, Artificial Color, Artificial Flavor), Nonfat Dry Milk, Instant Coffee, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Cocoa Powder (Processed with Alkali), Silicon Dioxide and Sodium Aluminosilicate (to Prevent Caking), Carboxymethylcellulose, Salt.
How do we get sold into buying this stuff? Instagram? Inadvertent product placement on HN?
Seems that the product is cheaper than take out Starbucks, so it is a deal. But is it?
I drink tea (I am British) and my preference is for the cheap stuff. So that means the 40 Fair Trade bags for 50p from one store or 80 non-Fair-Trade bags for 58p ($1) from the other store. No milk, no sugar and certainly no Dipotassium Phosphate needed.
$4.99 for 15 cups? That is 33 cents per go. I am sure I could get hooked to it. To cost myself $2.50 a day or approximately $17 dollars a week more than my current beverage costs (ignoring electricity). That is getting on for $900 a year for getting Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate and the like into my arteries!
But, the Hill Brothers delicacy is still a bargain compared to one Starbucks treat a day.
Pffft. Are you new to "accidental" comment product placement? It's all about brand awareness. Brands like the delicious Lavazza coffee i m drinking right now.
Meanwhile, Hill Bros are anything but. They were owned by Nestle but are now part of this outfit:
http://www.mzb-group.com/en/brands
It is crazy how the core product is merchandised to different people around the world.
In the UK we get one of their brands at train stations and it all seems cool and locally British. But what is not so obvious is that the other coffee place at the station that seems not connected to the chain is also selling the same product with Italian branded beans. So the apparent choice is lining the same pockets of the global mega corp.
Obviously there is choice but sometimes the choice seems imagined, the megacorp can monopolise a locality such as a station.
Coffee is a product for grown ups but when you look at the MZB portfolio it seems that only in America do they treat their customers to a dumbed-down, sugared-up childish product with garish packaging. This is not just this mega-corp, if you go into a British supermarket and find a special shelf area with American products you will see some true crimes when it comes to ultrabright and childish packaging. Sometimes the cereal boxes have to have stickers over some of the nutrition claims on the pack as Trading Standards would just have those products off the shelves immediately if they weren't sanitised that bit.
The mega corp will sell the ultra adulterated products for the US market and have another brand to cater for the hipsters that want heritage, eco-whatever, taste and what not.
I think I really will be sticking with plain tea or skipping the intermediate steps and just going for sugar coated crack cocaine. It is all pulling the same levers in the brain.