The first item is my wife's famous "Scottish Shortbread" that is not for those on a diet. The recipe calls for a significant amount of butter to hold the flour and sugar together. Normally it is as firm as a biscuit. This year the end product was reduced to a crumbly mess (albeit a tasty mess). The reason is an increase in the moisture content of the store brand butter we bought. The same brand we have bought in previous years without an issue. Have you noticed a difference in the quality of the butter you buy?

Another traditional baking item is our Nanaimo Bars and Midnight Mints, both of which have a layer of chocolate on top. The chocolate was from chocolate chips which had to be melted on the stove and then applied using a spatula. The chips now have less butter fat and this changes how they melt and how the layer of chocolate gets spread on top. This has created another mess (tasty) but not fit for guests. My wife threw the end result in the garbage (howls of protest from me). Have you noticed a change in the quality of chocolate chips?

This last one is from last year and has changed what we plan to do this year. Traditionally we bought sausage meat for use in sausage rolls and the stuffing for the turkey. The recent sausage meat had a much higher moisture and fat content and a lot less meat. This changed the texture of these two recipes and we decided to no longer use the product. Have you noticed a change in the quality of the meat used for stuffing etc.?

We have noticed changes to other products as well as the ones above where, in order to extract more profit, the manufacturers have changed ingredients and ended up making the product unusable. Dog food is one example where this practice makes our dog ill and we are regularly changing dog food brands in search of consistent quality. As a business strategy for these companies, this does not make sense. Are there other products you stopped buying because of this type of corporate greed? (comment below).