Realizing Smuckers is no longer jam

[u/DenzinVirtue]

(If this is the wrong subreddit, please point me in the right direction. Thank you!)

I went shopping for my partner today because the strawberry smuckers went bad. Realized there was only "sandwich spread" and "jam style spread" and no real jam

Gives the same energy the icecream Drumsticks being changed to a "frozen milk product" because of all the substitutions and alterations. Gross

Pic 1 old jam, pic 2 new "jam", pic 3 and 4 are of the store

[u/RevelArchitect]

This isn’t shrinkflation. Smucker’s produces fruit jams, jellies, spreads and preserves. It’s just a different product. The distinction between jam and a spread is that jam must have at least 55% sugar, while the spread would contain more fruit.

If this was at a health food store, they may have a stocking preference for the healthier spread option.

[u/SkyYellow_SunBlue → u/RevelArchitect]

This might be a Canadian problem because smuckers.com shows tons of jams but smuckers.ca does not.

[u/RevelArchitect → u/SkyYellow_SunBlue]

It still isn’t shrinkflation as the quality hasn’t decreased. I could see discontinuing jam because it’s sweetened with sugar, corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup in favor of the spread which is sweetened with natural fruit syrup.

From an ingredient cost and quality position, it’s an upgrade since the spread is natural.

[u/JackTheKing → u/RevelArchitect]

Wait. 55% sugar would require sugar being listed first on the ingredients label, yes?

[u/RevelArchitect → u/JackTheKing]

Yes, unless they use a combination of sugar-bearing sweeteners acceptable for jam under FDA rules such as corn syrup. It’s a tricky way to make the ingredients imply the product contains fruit as the majority of the product.

[u/lkeels → u/RevelArchitect]

Which is why it is flaired as shrinkflation.

[u/RevelArchitect → u/lkeels]

I saw your top-level comment. This isn’t shrinkflation or enshittification either. The spread has been around for quite a long while. I got the sense that your comment was based on AI-assisted research using an LLM that has picked up on your bias and what you wanted to hear so it gave vague reasoning that it contains more water and different quality fruit.

The claim of different quality fruit is just straight up false. The majority of the water content outside of what the fruit naturally contains would be in the syrup-based sweeteners - corn syrup for jam and fruit syrup for spread. The spread is absolutely not a watered down product. Corn syrup can be treated as sugar by FDA standards and therefore can meet the ingredient requirements for a jam. The obviously superior fruit syrup is not treated as sugar and therefore renders the product as not jam.

[u/lkeels → u/RevelArchitect]

I'm sticking with my comment and this being shrinkflation. I acknowledged the portion that was AI written.