Blue Band’s Roombeter is the most misleading food product of 2023
The Golden Wind Egg is the award no food producer wants to receive, yet it is handed out every year. By food watchdog Foodwatch, to the most misleading food product of the year. This year, Blue Band’s Roombeter took the dubious honor. In the 14 years that the Golden Wind Egg has been awarded, Foodwatch has never received so many complaints about a single product.
Every year, Foodwatch receives hundreds of complaints from disappointed consumers who feel deceived in the supermarket. The candidates for the Golden Wind Egg are selected from these complaints. The nominees that go too far are selected based on these reports and the food watchdog’s own research. A wonderful initiative, if you ask us.
Blue Band Roombeter
Consumers could vote for the most misleading food product of 2023. In addition to Blue Band’s Roombeter, they could also vote for Apple Bandit 0.0 Cider, Hero B’tween Protein, Lidl/Crownfield 7 Grain Breakfast and Danio Creamy Quark Pistachio Flavor. The voting results clearly showed how intensely consumers were annoyed by Blue Band’s misleading butter: 45% of the votes went to Blue Band Roombeter.
In a different wrapper or green tub
The deception surrounding Blue Band Roombeter lies in how cleverly the name and packaging resemble those of butter. Roombeter is spelled with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘o’, and it comes in the familiar golden wrapper. Show someone this packaging and then ask what kind of product it is. Almost everyone says: butter! And that’s not even surprising. The golden wrapper, a product name that reads like butter and a curl of solid butter as an illustration on the wrapper: Blue Band is seriously pulling the wool over our eyes, and consumers are rightly angry.
Frank Lindner, campaign manager at Foodwatch: “It is very good that people with an allergy or other dietary preference can consume dairy-free products. But to avoid playing into the dairy lobby’s hands, these alternatives should come in clearly distinctive packaging, such as a different wrapper or green tub.”
Blue Band makes the mistake again
Extra painful: this is not the first time Blue Band has received Foodwatch’s Golden Wind Egg. Blue Band also won it triumphantly in 2011. That time, it was for their Goede Start! white bread. The producer at the time, Unilever, did not want to accept the Golden Wind Egg for their ‘tastiest white bread containing whole grain’. The bread, specially made for children, contained no whole-grain flour. It did contain fake fiber instead of real dietary fiber. So much wrongdoing—we at the FavorFlav editorial office can really get worked up about it.
Hero B’tween Protein: also crap
This year, Hero B’tween Protein comes second behind Blue Band, with 19% of the votes. Many consumers object to the absurdity of a relatively expensive ‘special protein’ product, because most Dutch people already consume more than enough protein every day. A handful of unsalted peanuts contains more protein than a Hero bar, too. Hero is also heavily criticized for the fact that half of the packaging consists of empty air. Hero has indicated that a smaller package will come onto the market in the new year.
Where is the pistachio, Danio??
Third place this year goes to Danio Creamy Quark Pistachio Flavor, with 16% of the votes. This Danone product does not contain a single milligram of fresh pistachio. Yet two enormous pistachios are prominently displayed on the packaging. The flavor comes from a natural flavoring, and Danio does not want to say what its basis is. How childish.
Read also:
- Knorr’s Poké Bowl with ‘lots of vegetables’ is extremely misleading
- 10x truffle products from the supermarket that you need a magnifying glass for
- 5x what food packaging would look like if it were more honest
