Arnotts ‘humbled’ but in for the long haul as furore grows over changes to Shapes recipe

Idiots. I can’t wait for the inevitable backpedal two months from now when their sales have plummeted.

“As you can imagine, to achieve this new recipe, whereby the flavour is baked into the biscuit and sprinkled on both sides, millions of dollars have been invested in the project with new equipment at our bakeries and thousands of hours of R&D, sensory and flavour development work as well as an extensive marketing campaign which is just launching.”

yeah, yeah, yeah

BUUUUTTTT

Why didnt you test it with your market first ?????

I must say, my kids won’t eat the cheddar version any more

I am hopeful that this is a ‘new coke’ stunt and the old flavours will be brought back!

If it ain’t broke…

I just assumed they changed the flavour as part of some cost cutting manufacturing exercise. To learn they actually did it because they thought it made their product taste better defies belief. Stoners everywhere will be turning in their couches.

What about your other biscuits like iced vovos. They have shrunk to half the size still same price. And they dont look or taste the same.

You’d think everyone is over-reacting. Then you bite into a bbq shape.

And that’s when you realise the type of taste where you know that in a few hours you’re going to be exploding out your ass much in the same way that their new advertising is conveying.

The new Cheddar Shapes taste awful. We ate 2 to 3 packs a week but stopped 5 weeks ago – no Cheddar shapes for 5 weeks is agony.

Arnott’s are throwing everything at this – all shapes have been on special for at least a month. This is a sure signal that things are not going well, and they risk losing the premium market shapes have held for a generation.

“This change was firmly in response to customer feedback that Shapes lovers wanted more flavour”

“More flavour” doesn’t mean “give me a new flavour”

They taste and seem better now

I devastated about the flavour change. Gross. I won’t be buying again until they return to the original recipe. Keys hope Coles or Woolworths comes up with an alternative till then. Why arnotts whyyyyyy???

They wanted more of the same flavour…NOT A NEW ONE YOU GOON!!!!!!

Didn’t ANYONE in the ENTIRE company ever hear the story of “New Coke”? WOW what a bunch of corporate muppets.

Unfortunately more flavour is not always good.
Maybe people were just asking for “more” of the flavour they loved. I don’t think anyone asked you to reinvent the flavour. Someone has really messed up here and unless you can go back, I’m sorry to say, Arnotts is doomed.
People wonder why Australian companies keep disappearing, it’s because stubborn people who make the decisions can’t accept they have made a mistake.
I won’t be buying any more.

This is sad. Me and my friend Emily used to love shapes. Her especially. She would be there at recess eating shapes, at lunch eating shapes, after school she wouldn’t even ask if you wanted shapes she would just ask what flavour. She LOVED them. I went to school today and saw her not eating. She had a packet of shapes but she didn’t want to eat them. Why? Because she knew that when she ate them she would have finished her last packet of original shapes. THEY ARE DISGUSTING!!! Please Arnotts I know you think we’ll get used to them but please either bring back the old ones and get rid of he new ones or bring back the old ones and have a different “more flavour” range. I love shapes but even I can’t stomach these.

Gone also is the line “flavour you can see”, replaced with the new line, “now with more flavour”.

Ugh. A beige line for a brainless move.

Shapes OWNED “Flavour you can see”. I wonder where I’ve seen “Now with more flavour” before? Oh yeah, that’s right – every FMCG product in the supermarket ever.

“Shape lovers wanted more flavour”- yeah …. Did you maybe think they just wanted more of what you had?! That is, more old flavour goodness, not a completely different, cheap, dirty flavour! Well at least I might lose a few kgs now. Pizza Shapes were ALWAYS a shopping trolley staple. Not anymore I’m sorry ?

Am i the only one that actually thinks they taste alot better now?

The flavour is much stronger, more realistic. It’s especially apparenty when you taste the old one directly after the new. The old BBQ are just bad, all the flavour falls to the bottom of the bag.

I will admit however that the lack of crunch in the new ones isn’t good.

you guys have really messed up. The old product needed further taste refinement tweeking, but not a complete different buscuit.We tried our favorite nacho cheese old versus new taste,and i would like to meet the fools who approved Arrnotts demise RIP

I’ve never thrown a partly eaten packed of Shapes out in my life. Last night I did. First it was the new BBQ. Three biscuits in and the rest were binned. Same went for the Pizza Shapes. I honestly can’t believe I said to my wife, we’re never buying these again. Shapes! Never again. Arnotts, park the ego, acknowledge the sunk cost and go back to the original.

Mr Literal is on the money – remember the good old days where you could barely see the biscuit because there was so much green and red flavour dust on a BBQ shape? Not any more! The best bit of a pack was the glorious moment when you had finished all the biscuits only to be left with another 60 grams of delicious excess flavour dust. God I miss the 90’s

My self and my children refuse to eat your new shapes taste like shit do a bit of research maybe a good idea would have been asking paying customers before wasting money on a change that no body likes I was shocked when I returned mine to find others doing the same and boxes of returned behind the counter .ill not by your brand again

You know that the taste is bad when both my kids won’t eat any of the new flavours… and God knows they love their highly processed junk treats.

The Elwood IGA sells Shapes but does not stock Barbecue. How can we put a human face to this growing tragedy?

It’s a lonely life for a brand manager. Change the size, change the flavour, change the packaging, change the format, change the price. 3 years of uni and for what?

It’s just a biscuit…. What is wrong with you people!

The statement about keeping up with “modern” food tastes is crap (like their new biscuit). Anyone over the age of 15 who has grown up on BBQ shapes loves them the way they are. People can make their own food preference decision and go and buy other more newer snacks to keep up with new food trends themselves! Arnotts doesn’t have to do this for them. And talk about bad capital expenditure. Arnotts spends millions on new processing machinery but what really takes the cake is they also had to employ more people in IT just to handle all the complaints! If they had have left things alone, they would not have all this extra expense which will not be covered in profits but become a money pit due to no sales.

Don’t buy the product. That’s the only way they will get the message.
If they truly did all the market research they are claiming, they would have seen this backlash coming. It doesn’t add up, or those running the market research are incompetent.
They products are terrible, my kids will not eat them and I agree with them.
Daughter threw the cheddar packet in bin. She would eat a whole packet of the old product herself if allowed.

“a social media storm” Say no more.

This is marketing genius. I can’t remember the last time I tried Shapes, but I can guarantee you I will buy a packet of the new version because I can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about.

I’m pretty sure when they asked the market and the market responded with ‘more flavour’. They meant more of the existing flavour that’s on the biscuit – sometimes it’s a bit light on…

c’mon people, those poor Marketing (savoury) folk have to have something to do all day…there’s only so many unnecessary packaging redesigns one can justify in a year.

Shapes were my favorite biscuits out of everything. Now I’d prefer to eat out of my dogs bowl than eat another “new” shape.

They should look to what they said here, (http s://vimeo.com/10677951) particularly at the 0.48 second mark

” … and alienation testing with heavy Shapes consumers …”

Says it all really.

I, for one, really love the new flavours, even having grown up on the originals. Not sure what the fuss is about.

Full Disclosure: Arnotts did send free products to our office. Yes I may have overindulged on them the last few weeks. So what? Don’t judge me.

I’ve been eating shapes for forty years and my kids take them to school everyday, but not anymore . What a shame, why fix something that isn’t broken”.

Lets get to the bottom of this for real – it has nothing to do with changing tastes – it has everything to do with profit. I will guarantee you that the new unpalletable flavours = cheaper production costs.

They will throw huge rebates at Coles / Safeway to keep them on special for the long term hoping we all just get used to the change.

If it looks shit, smells shit, tastes shit – it’s shit!

There are a quite a few problems we have to deal with. The first, making a change we are told we asked for and we are told the taste is better. The second, is this apparent need to fix something that the rest of us know is not ‘broken’. The modern philosophy being applied is if it not broken break it. I find the continued use of the old BBQ packaging is misleading and that’s where we incorrectly bought a product we didn’t actually want. Yes, there are batch to batch variations where the flavor and color was lacking – so make sure you add the ingredients as required – not change the whole product (and not the packaging)
The new product should not represent the previous product name or labeling – this is false and misleading. Anyone out there wanting to take a legal challenge so we can tell them what we really think?

Reason they don’t want to go back is because the new and improved shapes are cheaper to make.
They contain things like MSG and other “Flavor Enhancers” where the older flavors did not have MSG and other kinds of “Flavor Enhancers”

I bought one pack of the new to try and got 2 of the old.
I only had a few of the new ones before I put them in the BBQ pit and lit them on fire.(All evil things must be killed with fire)

Look at the ingredient listing from an old pizza,BBQ shapes box to the new one.
Then go on google and look up each E number

Wiki has all the E-Numbers in a list of what each is.

What do you mean Barbecue Shapes?

There’s only one shape and it doesn’t even look like a barbecue.

Get out the planogram; a Shapes Classic range is imminent.

Lionel, if you read the article properly, it appears they did test it with their market:

“We have done extensive qualitative and quantitative research, including sensory testing and alienation testing with heavy Shapes consumers.”

It’s all the fault of those whingers who wanted more flavour!

All the people complaining, likely haven’t tasted the new shapes. They are actually better when you compare them. Stop jumping on band wagons sheeple. Maybe you should actually put this energy behind a real world problem…

Also for those people losing their minds, they still do have some of the originals available.

Wow – the arrogance! Consumers don’t like it so we’ll just continue to roll with what we’ve done despite the consumer saying they hate it. They’ve changed because they’re cheaper. Cheaper and worse. When will huge businesses get over that cheaper is better. Quality should always be the number one priority.

Hi Arnotts,

My son’s name is Jetmasta. I’ve been looking all around, but can’t find a packet with his name on it. Please, please, make a packet with Jetmasta on it.

Never bought the old ones, no plans to buy the new ones. My preference is to purchase actual food, not over-manufactured dead substances where much of the purchase price represents valueless marketing overheads.

HAS anyone checked the size of the new packs! On a hunch last night I checked the new BBQ shapes (which we didn’t like as much) compared to the old Pizza shapes (as that is all we had at home). The new BBQ is 175g while the old Pizza is 200g! Unless each flavour was a different weight (which I doubt), is this also a thinly veiled attempt to short change the consumer qty as well??

The new flavors are “cheap” they can say what they want about the r and d and extensive testing, it’s a cash grab and this is a cheaper way of making them….. wankers

We are not in a dictatorship society and people should have the choice to buy both old and new. Personally my family hate the new range and I will never by shapes again. Also a bit more advertising on the change prior to implementing it would have been nice, especially when you have autistic children who are shape lovers and hate change. My son ate your cheddar shapes daily for 10 years and after 2 biscuits of the new brand threw them out. Who was your sample group.? People with affected taste buds obviously!!! What a shame you stuffed up a good iconic biscuit with no regard for your loyal consumers. Will never by arnotts biscuit range again. EVER!!!!!!

Even my dog hates them

I would just like to say that I absolutely loved the original flavours of shapes and have always bought these as I always found other similar products cheap and very nasty in flavour. Now tasting the new flavour I have to say your product now tastes like the cheaper no name branded product which I totally refuse to buy. Sooooo disappointed!!!

You once had a winner with Cheddar shapes “Not anymore” If you offered new & old I know which one would win.
Very disappointed Arnotts.

Arnotts WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. Shame on you for destroying an Aussie icon

WTF Arnotts you guys have lost the plot we went through every flavour thinking it was going to get better…every single box is now crap like some cheapo no name brand…good luck trying to get these off the shelves at supermarkets!!!

I can’t believe I’m never going to have a good cheddar shape ever again, there can’t be too many left in the world by now. I must prepare for a greyed and desolate imitation of a life.

I’m stunned by what Arnott’s have done here. Both our kids and us won’t be buying them again. My son has brought his cheese and bacon shapes home in his lunchbox all week, refusing to eat them. I don’t blame him. So the rest of the packet has gone into the bin as no one in the house will eat them.

Pizza shapes used to be a staple of the grocery list everyweek and it was a race to the packet everyweek. However now they are terrible. They taste like cheap freeze dried tomato paste, and the biscuit texture is soft cake like.

Wow Arnott’s, silly silly move.
and well done for stuffing up something good.

Now onto the search for a new pantry filler. I’m tipping it won’t be an Arnott’s product.

I heard of the furore and raced to the shop to purchase as many of my daughter’s favourite ‘pig shapes’ (you guessed…Cheese and Bacon flavour) and totally WILL NOT purchase any of the new flavour. Hit them in their profit pocket en masse is the only way. People power!

The new shapes will hopefully go the way of the “new advanced” Gladwrap when their research department said to move the cutting edge to the other side of the pack.

Took them a while to get rid of the new improved stock; but thankfully they listened to the public and returned it to the way it had been for years and worked.

I am getting used to the new shrunken sized buscuits (how f*ckn dumb do they thing we are); but when you screw with a flavour — at least keep the old on the shelf too; or you’re in for a whole lota pain in the balance sheet.

‘Went to the supermarket to see what all the fuss was about.

Imagine my surprise to find that almost 99% of all products on the shelves was some kind or MSG-infused, dehydrated, inorganic, flavourless, irradiated, preserved chaff.

The organic butcher, baker and green grocer waiting patiently outside were just as puzzled, telling me that only when the last river has run dry and the last tree has been lopped, will people realise they can’t eat money.

To the PR morons at Arnotts who changed the Shapes recipe and stated

“Arnott’s has never embarked on a project with this level of research and testing before, We have done extensive qualitative and quantitative research, including sensory testing and alienation testing with heavy Shapes consumers. We have spoken to over 11,000 Australians in the development of new and improved Shapes.”

Guess you didn’t so your research, or you would know greatest product PR fail of the 20th century!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/30.....e-failure/

The new & improved taste is absolute crap and i will be no longer purchasing this product ! Pizza shapes taste like baked tomato paste ! Sack whoever thought this new and improved taste was good as their taste buds must be in their arse !

So dumb, makes no sense

Someone should get fired!!

So dumb

Seriously

SO DUMB!!!

it’s interesting on social media arnotts claim the old versions of BBQ shapes are “still available” – in the last few days i’ve been to 3 different supermarkets (not specifically looking for the old recipes, but when i was in a store i looked)

not one had any of the old flavours – only the so-called “new and improved” ones. that says to me that people are still buying the old ones and leaving the new ones alone…

Here’s what I think happened folks; some bright spark put their hand up in an Arnott’s head office meeting and the conversation went something like this:

Well we all know that we have been adding less and less sprinkles as the less sprinkles, the more profit we make from each pack we sell and if we want to keep our kids in private school and take those crazy overseas holidays we aint putting those sprinkles back! But I have a great idea: lets remove the sprinkles altogether, change the shape, add a bit of some weird flavour that we can say is the sprinkles baked into the biscuit and tell em it’s new and improved with more flavour, they’ll never know the difference and it will give us even more profit, happy days!
That guy got employee of the month and so many slaps on the back that he went out and brought a puffy jacket as his back was sore! Until Arnott’s realized that the “new improved” flavour was fooling no one and it was disgusting and that social media was organising petitions against the vile and horrific assault on our magnificent BBQ shape biscuits we love, and profits dropped and supermarket shelves were bending under the weight of all the unsold biscuits!
Arnott’s then did the only thing it could, it fed us the line that the change only happened as consumers “asked for it” but the original flavour would now stay (I have still not been able to buy the original flavour at all by the way )
And what happened to employee of the month guy with the puffy jacket you ask? Well I believe he still has and wears that jacket, as it is quite chilly in the warehouse that he now stacks shelves in!

the thing with shapes is that consumers have formed an emotional attachment to them. when i was in my teens in the 90’s a family BBQ or picnic had a bowl of shapes on the table. when i got married and picnicked with my wife we had the same.

as a brand, shapes had achieved something not may other brands had done – they had an emotional connection to the consumer. when planning a BBQ, a birthday or a picnic i would buy shapes. no family event was complete without them.

than they do this and completely wreck the goodwill the brand has built up.

on the plus side – i finally found the “old” BBQ shapes today after going to a few supermarkets – but i won’t be hunting for them. if i go to the supermarket and they don’t have the old recipe – i won’t buy them

“There is no substitute for quality” thats what arnotts said once

I worked for a major multi national who did a similar thing on a massive brand. The major driver was cost savings and within 6 months they contracted / withdrew and relaunched the old. Consumers always vote with their money

Take 100 people who eat Barbecue Shapes regularly and get them to try the new product. 99% think they taste like shit. It’s so bleeding obvious. This ranks up there with changing the cutter on Glad Wrap as the biggest marketing fuck ups of this decade

Nailed it. just add more of the delicious stuff on the outside and we would have all been happy(er)

YES! Finally someone who shares my opinion. I did a side by side of the BBQ flavours, and the new ones taste way better.

Besides, there are WAY bigger things to worry about in the world than how a friggin’ biscuit tastes. Things change. Build a bridge.

Oh yes, it was my favourite part. Licking my finger and dipping into the left over red and green! In the 70’s they came in a box that was inside a plastic wrap, they had so much red and green flavour.

Yep. For the first time in years, my 15-year-old daughter has requested that we not bring the product home from the shops. She wants to make a stand with the new recipe. Hopefully, by the time they go back to the original cooking style, she’ll realise what rubbish it is for her body.

Why would I buy the new taste shapes?
I can buy sakatas that taste the same if not better than the new flavours, and are much healthier.
My kids and I buy sakatas now.
Thanks Arnotts, for the opportunity to find something better.

Arnott’s, you say you did a lot of research with consumers before changing the flavour of my favourite snack food… but you didn’t ask me…I will provide my feedback at the check-out by not buying BBQ shapes anymore. By the way, this is the second insult to my snacking habits since you stopped making Golliwog/Scalliwags! Hmmm, might be time to start buying Nabisco.

Arnott’s clearly issued two briefs here.

Brief 1: To Marketing: We need some news, so plan for a re-launch.

Brief 2: To Production: We need to re-engineer this product to cut 20% out of the manufacturing cost.

It’s also clear that nobody told Sarah about the second brief.
After all, the factory is nothing to do with marketing, is it?

Thanks for the health kick! NEWS FLASH:
“Australians are getting healthier after Arnotts succumbed to pressure from the National Health Lobby to change the favourite Shapes to flavours no one will eat. Reports are that fresh fruit sales have increased significantly as a result” Thank you Arnotts.

As has been voiced by many already AnneL “more flavour” means more of the current little red bits that tasted so good at the bottom of the silver pack, not this angel dust concentrated crap they’ve apparently spent millions on the manufacturing of!!

I actually loved the new shapes with more flavour and am so upset they’re gone 🙁 Plz keep them available for people who want more flavour please!! I especially loved the chicken crimpy with more flavour it was sooo delicious