We all make mistakes from time to time, and the vast majority will hopefully be pretty harmless. However, when mistakes are made by major food brands, the fallout can be huge. At best, they make even the most loyal customers grumble; at worst, they can cause uproar and lead to plummeting sales. In some cases, they are neither forgiven nor forgotten. From fiddling with popular recipes to introducing bizarre new products and making baffling marketing decisions, these are the biggest ever mistakes made by food brands. 

Click or scroll through our gallery to discover some of the worst errors made by food brands – how many do you remember?

Note: all dollar amounts are USD, unless otherwise stated.

On Valentine’s Day 2018, KFC changed its logistics partner in the UK. This meant that a new company was now responsible for keeping each of the 900-plus stores supplied with, among other things, the key ingredient: chicken. However, the switch didn’t exactly go to plan; within days, more than 600 shops were closed due to a lack of chicken. Others were able to stay open, but with a very limited menu. Thankfully, things got better within a couple of weeks, and a good (very apologetic) marketing campaign meant KFC came out with its reputation intact.

Kellogg’s chocolatey puffed rice cereal has a number of different names around the world, though most are similar to the US branding: Cocoa Krispies. In the UK, however, they've always been known as Coco Pops. Well, almost always. In an effort to bring the UK in line with the rest of Europe, they were rebranded as Choco Krispies in 1998. A small tweak, some might think. But not the cereal's British customers. Sales plummeted and, in a survey of one million people, 92% of respondents said they wanted Coco Pops back. Kellogg’s relented, and in February 1999 the old name returned – with huge fanfare.

New Coke is among the most infamous of food brand mistakes. In 1985, Coca-Cola changed its recipe in an attempt to fend off new pretenders to the soft drink crown, who had barged into the market with sweeter products. However, the wider public hated the new taste – and sales nosedived. Within three months, the original recipe returned, rebranded Coca-Cola Classic to distinguish it from the disastrous experiment (the 'Classic' was dropped in 2009). The company was rewarded with a huge sales boost – so huge, in fact, that some now theorise New Coke was simply a marketing ploy.

Arnott’s Pizza Shapes are little known outside of Australia and New Zealand, but there they mean everything. These hexagonal biscuits sell more than 50 million boxes each year in Australia alone, averaging more than two per person. This is why there was uproar in 2016 when Arnott’s made a fundamental change to the snack: rather than using seasoning powder, they started baking flavours directly into the biscuit. Livid customers voted with their feet (and shopping habits), and the decision was reversed within six months.

A glass of orange juice with breakfast is a pretty normal way to start the day. However, in 1985 Kellogg’s took this idea a step too far when it introduced its throat-curdling OJ's cereal. Despite promising all the vitamin C that’s found in an average serving of fresh orange juice, along with a sweet coating that included 10% of real orange juice, the cereal bombed. Within a year, OJ's were off shelves completely. Consumers had decided that they very much wanted their morning milk and orange separate.

Milo has been a popular fortified chocolate malt drink in Australia and beyond since its 1934 launch, so it's somewhat baffling that Nestlé decided to start fiddling with the recipe. In 2015, the company altered the added vitamins and minerals in the tonic powder, but the only difference customers noticed was a decidedly less chocolatey taste. In 2019, Nestlé finally gave in and returned Milo to the original recipe – and full chocolate goodness.

Tropicana's orange juice is arguably the most famous in the world, due in part to its easily recognisable branding of an orange pierced with a straw. However, in 2009, the company spent $35 million (around £28m) on a rebrand, updating the traditional design to a more modern and minimalist one. Consumers, though, did not adore the new aesthetic, and the company lost $20 million (£16m) in sales in the first month alone. This steered an immediate U-turn, with the classic branding quickly reinstated.

The term ‘shrinkflation’ refers to when a product’s price remains the same, but the size is reduced. Toblerone offered one of the most famous examples of this in 2016, when the brand removed two chunks from its UK and German bars, also adding bigger gaps (or valleys, perhaps) between the iconic chocolate peaks. It took almost two years of complaints before the Toblerones were returned to their original shape and sold in a bigger, more expensive bar.

This wasn't the end of the chocolate brand's problems, though. In early 2023, Toblerone's owner Mondelez International announced it was moving part of the production to Slovakia – and was consequently forced to change its packaging to remove indicators of Swiss identity. This is due to regulations on 'Swissness' introduced in 2017, designed to ensure that products that market themselves as Swiss are actually made in Switzerland. The bars' famous image of the Matterhorn mountain peak was replaced by one of a more generic summit.

In 2018, hugely popular adult animated series Rick and Morty included a joke about Rick making a stop at McDonald’s while exploring his memories. The reason, he explained, was so that he could taste a very special McDonald’s dipping sauce: Szechuan. It had been created as a promotional tie-in for Disney’s 1998 film Mulan, and discontinued soon after. However, after being mentioned on the show, McDonald’s decided to listen to fans and bring the sauce back for a single day in the US.

The result was utter chaos. With very limited supplies available, fans disrupted business as they rowdily queued for hours to try it. Police were called to some locations to break up near riots, while those who were able to get their hands on portions of the Szechuan sauce flipped them online for hundreds of dollars. McDonald’s quickly made more available, a move that somewhat reduced the surrounding fervour – but it’s hard to see how the disruption was worth it.

Salad cream is hugely popular in the UK, so much so that American condiment giant Heinz spent eight years perfecting a recipe for the British market. Heinz Salad Cream finally launched in 1914, with much success. However, more recently, there have been a few bumps in the road. The first problem came in 2000, when Heinz threatened to discontinue the hugely popular product. It stayed on shelves, but there were more issues to come.

In June 2018, Heinz announced that it would be changing the name to Sandwich Cream. The decision was made after research showed only 14% of customers actually used the product on salads, with most instead using it as a mayonnaise alternative in sandwich spreads. There was uproar from the British public when the change was announced, with 87% of customers firmly against it. Thankfully, peace was restored that September, when Heinz backed down and gave up on the rebrand.

British supermarket chain Iceland focuses on providing a big range of lower-cost frozen food. In an attempt to make its frozen vegetable selection more appealing to children, in 1997 it launched what it called Wacky Veg. These were frozen vegetables flavoured to taste like other things, including chocolate-flavoured carrots, pizza sweetcorn and peas imbued with the taste of baked beans. They were universally unpopular, with most kids preferring even the taste of real vegetables, and the idea was dropped after just a year.

While many brands strive for mass appeal, Yorkie went in another direction and strove for notoriety. In 2002, the brand launched its provocative 'Not for girls!' campaign in the UK, suggesting that its big, chunky bars were for men only. This, of course, led to complaints about sexism. Particular lows during this time were attempts to hand out free samples to men only, and the introduction of a pink-wrapped bar in 2006 that women were 'permitted' to eat. 

As divisive as the campaign was, and remains to this day, it’s hard to call it a failure. The controversial ads were in step with the era’s edgy comedy, and propelled a rather forgotten chocolate brand into the national conversation. Sales even remained strong among women, with reports from 2002 noting that around 40% of Yorkies were bought by women disobeying advertising instructions. The campaign was eventually stopped in 2011, but has not been forgotten.

The early 1990s saw a ‘purity’ trend in American food, and consumers demanded healthier products. This propelled Pepsi to introduce Pepsi Clear. The product had the same taste as regular Pepsi, but without the caramel colouring or caffeine content. Despite initial strong sales after a 1992 launch, Pepsi Clear failed to achieve long-term success as the appetite for colourless soda quickly diminished. Whether due to changing consumer tastes, or rivals Coca-Cola intentionally crashing the trend with its Tab product, the product was discontinued in 1994.

In 2014, 20 years after the product was discontinued, fan pressure began to build for Pepsi Clear's return to shelves. There was even a two-day rally outside Pepsi’s headquarters. The plan worked, and in 2016 Pepsi Clear returned to shelves in the US for a limited run. The product has returned twice more, in 2018 and 2022, and the continued popularity means fans can expect to see Pepsi Clear in fridges again someday soon.

The WOW Chips released by Lays (Walkers in the UK) are perhaps the ultimate example of ‘if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is’. The brand released this low-fat variation of its popular snacks to huge success in 1998. WOW Chips contained a chemical called Olestra, a supposed wonder substitute for using fats in the production process. By using Olestra in their WOW Chips, Lays was able to cut the calorie content by two-thirds. 

There was a big downside, though: Olestra caused some consumers to suffer from sudden and unpleasant stomach issues, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eventually forced Lays to put a warning on the packaging. By 2000, sales of WOW Chips had halved. Somehow, though, they stayed on shelves as Lays Light all the way until 2016, when they were finally discontinued.

Canadian-made Orbitz was unlike any soda seen before or since. Rather than mix the flavouring in with the water base, Orbitz saw brightly coloured balls of flavour float around in a sugar water suspension. The idea was that, when drunk, the balls would give an intense burst of flavour in the mouth. The product was initially popular thanks to its innovation and obvious shelf appeal, however the final taste left much to be desired. Orbitz was taken off shelves in 2000, just four years after launch.

In 2000, Heinz tried to make its ketchup more appealing to children by introducing EZ Squirt varieties in the US. This line saw green, purple and blue coloured ketchups appear alongside the classic red, encouraging children to be creative as they painted it on their food (and pressure parents to buy multiple bottles). Initially the release of EZ Squirt was a huge success, hitting its projected first year sales in just three months. However, the brand soon ran into trouble.

While EZ Squirt ketchup never lost popularity with kids, and is still a fond memory for people who grew up with it, parents eventually turned on it. The early 2000s saw concerns mount about how artificial colourings affected children, putting many parents off the idea of multi-coloured ketchup. Meanwhile, others simply grew tired of having multiple half-used bottles of the same thing. Heinz introduced a ‘mystery’ colour in an attempt to bring some excitement back to EZ Squirt, but the product was eventually discontinued in 2006.

Coors has always said the water it uses from Rocky Mountain springs is the heart of its beer, giving it a distinctive clean, crisp taste. It makes sense, then, that in 1990 Coors tried selling this water directly to consumers by launching Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water. The product came in three flavours: lemon-lime, cherry and 'original'. The idea of drinking something non-alcoholic from Coors never caught on, though, and by 1997 the company went as far as abandoning the trademark.

The issue wasn’t a bad product, as those who did try Coors’s water loved it. Rather, it was simply a brand mismatch – nobody wanted sparkling water from a beer manufacturer. Things might be different today, though, as the popularity of non-alcoholic alternatives are at an all-time high, while water brands such as Liquid Death use designs and marketing similar to breweries. Sadly for Coors, it was just ahead of its time.

We imagine the logic went something like this: people have dinner before bed and people brush their teeth before bed, so why can’t the same brand provide both things? Enter the Colgate Lasagna – a product that failed so spectacularly, Colgate would prefer to pretend it never actually happened. Quite simply, nobody was interested in eating food from the company who produced the tube of minty stuff that cleaned their teeth.

The Arch Deluxe was supposed to be McDonald’s crowning glory. Research suggested that customers wanted more grown-up menu items, and the company listened. In 1996, the Arch Deluxe was the lead product in a new range of menu items, and McDonald’s spent $300 million (around £240m) on developing and marketing its new star burger. However, despite promising results from test markets, the Arch Deluxe flopped. Diners were put off by the bigger size and higher price compared to the rest of the McDonald’s range.

While the Arch Deluxe was finally discontinued in 2000, its legacy still lives on. Outside of the US, it has a much more popular spiritual successor, known as the Big Tasty in the UK and the Big N’ Tasty elsewhere. It was originally designed to compete with Burger King’s Whopper, but the burger is also everything the Arch Deluxe was supposed to be – a larger, more grown-up meal. Although not a regular menu item, customers are always happy when it is brought back for special periods.

Red Bull might be the king of energy drinks, but it was humbled in 2007 when it tried to break into the cola market. Despite its best efforts, including prominent advertising with both of its Formula 1 teams, the product never broke the Pepsi/Coke monopoly on the market. This might be because consumers assumed it would be highly caffeinated, while in reality the product had no more caffeine than other colas. Whatever the reason, it was withdrawn from the US in 2011, and only exists as a niche product in limited global markets.

Now discover the best ever fast food desserts – which is your favourite?