Man buys new rice packs from Knorr. One seems off—then he reads something alarming in the packaging: ‘We need to fight’

Dani (@danibutmakeitphantom) says he keeps a rotation of Knorr chicken-flavored rice-and-pasta pouches in his kitchen.

In a viral video, he films himself realizing the newest ones off the store shelf don't read like the old ones. “It's [expletive] over. They got my Knorrs, bro,” he says, holding the packet up to the camera.

What Changed About the Knorr Chicken-Flavored Rice & Pasta Packs?

Dani says he cooks the pouches often enough to have the directions memorized.

“My stupid [expletive] always like to check in the bag to make sure it's always two cups of water,” he says. “Two cups of water, right? Right, right—double-check.”

The new pouch broke up his ritual. First, the new packet shows the water line had moved to 2¼ cups, and the cook time he knew as seven minutes now reads 15.

“Something's off,” he says. “This is the same. I got the same kind. I don't like this.”

Then he lands on another upsetting detail on the front of the package.

“My homie pointed it out. ‘No artificial flavors or preservatives,'” he reads off the old package. Then he gestures to the same section on the new package, where that line is missing. “They can't even promise that anymore.”

On July 30, a shopper named Charles Lisa sued Unilever in the Southern District of New York over the same four words on the old bags, arguing the citric acid, sodium citrate, and disodium inosinate inside make “no artificial flavors or preservatives” a false promise. A second class action from Brooklyn makes a similar claim.

‘They Aren't $1 Anymore Either'

Many other people noticed big changes in their preferred packets.

“They [expletive] with my creamy garlic shells. Switched to cavatappi? noodles and it doesn't even taste the [expletive] same,” one person commented.

“They most definitely changed the ingredients,” claimed another person. “I've been cooking these religiously since I moved out on my own. I noticed it immediately; the [expletive] tastes different and looks different. Ended up adding their chicken bouillon stuff and extra butter to it to add flavor [because] it's bland now.”

Another person said, “The broccoli cheese [used] to have chunks of broccoli. No joke, it's been broccoli dust for a couple years now.”

One person joked, “We USED to be a proper country.”

Is This an Example of ‘Skimpflation'?

Shoppers squinting at the back of the bag and crying foul is now a familiar scene. In fact, it's hard to think of a popular brand that hasn't changed for the worse, at least in shoppers' minds, over the last decade.

When Campbell bought Rao's in 2024, fans swore the marinara from the new jars tasted cheaper. CEO Mark Clouse went on the record to squash the rumor: “We will not touch the sauce,” he said.

The change in ingredient quality that customers fear has a name. Consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky calls it “skimpflation.” This is when “a manufacturer has reformulated one of its products, usually with cheaper ingredients,” according to NBC Boston. Dworsky says the swaps are typically “really hard to detect.”

Subplot News reached out to Dani via TikTok comment and direct message and to Knorr's parent company, Unilever, via email for additional information. We will update this story if they respond.

@danibutmakeitphantom

The post Man buys new rice packs from Knorr. One seems off—then he reads something alarming in the packaging: ‘We need to fight' appeared first on Subplot News.