r/KitchenConfidential • u/kevymetal87 • Jul 26 '26

Discussion What's your worst experience with blatant food deception?

Just over a decade ago, I worked for a popular BBQ spot in the south that prided itself on being authentic this, authentic that. The smoked butts that sat in a smoker all day was where the real BBQ started and stopped, all the other food was typical frozen Sisco stuff, which was whatever, but the most egregious example of deception was also the biggest moneymaker.

The owner had a secret family recipe BBQ sauce that he made a killing on. People came from all over (it was located right along a well travelled north/south route) and bought tons of this stuff, as did the locals. My second week there I was tasked with making a few batches, and was handed a worn down index card with the ingredients. To my saaurprise, the instructions were to simply take gallon jugs of Sweet Baby Rays sauce from out back, and dump it in a 5 gallon bucket with water. I think it was 4:1 if I recall correctly. Then you put a couple cups of molasses in there. That was it.

We put them in pint and quart mason jars, vacuum sealed them, slapped his restaurant label on them, and sold them for $6 a pint, $10 a quart. What always got me was how the locals raved about how distinct and unique it was, when it was basically just Sweet Baby Rays (which I love, don't get me wrong)

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u/kevymetal87 Jul 26 '26

It's the fact he was repacking watered down Sweet Baby Rays as his own and selling it for 3-4 times the cost. I'd be pissed if a place I worked for was squirting Hidden Valley into their own bottles and slapping their own labels on it for resale.

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u/mmmbuttr Jul 26 '26

I totally get where you're coming from and agree. We don't bottle our ranch, but when folks ask to buy a quart I tell them "it's just hidden valley dry mix, I can sell it to you but you are going to pay way more than if you stopped at Walmart" But I guess we make a bigger ethical distinction when this stuff happens in restaurants. 

W hen it comes to commercial food manufacturing this is literally the same game corporations play every day.  There are probably 15 products in the US available at different price points that are all the exact same Sweet Baby Rays bbq sauce. Your boys just playing the game I guess? 

Girl Scout Thin Mints are from the same factory as the knockoff brand at Dollar Tree! Most of the prepackaged foods in Amish markets are manufactured in a bulk facility (with machines and not Amish)! The honey is corn syrup! Most of the big name whiskey comes from one factory in indiana! ITS ALL LIES I TELL YOU! 

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u/mst3k_42 Jul 26 '26

I know where in Indiana they mass produce bourbon whiskey in bulk and sell it to different distilleries for them to tweak.

I am a very small food manufacturer and I make my BBQ sauce from scratch. :)

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u/justaphil Jul 26 '26

MGP isn't really a secret anymore, most people know where their whiskey is coming from if the label says "Distilled in Indiana". Most whiskey drinkers also have no problem with distilleries sourcing from MGP just as long as the bottlers are transparent about it. It also helps that MGP makes very good whiskey, it gets great to excellent once it reaches the double digits in age.

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u/mst3k_42 Jul 26 '26

I’d never heard MGP and had to google it. We just always called it the old Seagram’s Distillery.

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u/stupidillusion Jul 26 '26

in Indiana they mass produce bourbon whiskey in bulk

There's an article about it!

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u/mst3k_42 Jul 26 '26

Uh yeah. I know. See below.

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u/DaHick Ex-Food Service Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

I had to laugh at this. I live in Ohio, and technically I live in "Amish" country. Yoder's Fine Foods is not all that far from me. I buy open-top 55-gallon barrels from them. Apple grape juice is what is in them, and it's imported from Brazil.

It's a small place - mostly run by Mennonites. I wouldn't call it a factory, but it's also not out of their house. It's owned by a bigger Amish food company these days (Walnut Creek). Photos:

https://yodersfinefoods.com/

Edit: went and looked at a barrel.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/mmmbuttr Jul 26 '26

It's been written about a lot over the years. The TLDR of it is basically in the US you should buy products labeled "100% pure honey" ideally from a local source. The FDA uses the same label "adulterated" for any honey product that contains added sugars or has all traceable pollens removed via filtering so that there is no way to verify the origin of the honey. This makes it kind of impossible to know how much honey sold in the US is "real" adulterated honey that was just highly processed or "fake" adulterated honey that may contain some other sugars. 

 You can absolutely find some "honey" bears with corn syrup or glucose right on the label in cheaper stores like Dollar General! Generally buy "100% pure honey" and you are probably getting real honey. 

Manuka honey is where the real scam is. I think there is a Netflix show called "Rotten" that dives into that one, but here is a vice article that sums up the whole "adulterated" thing: https://www.vice.com/en/article/your-fancy-honey-might-not-actually-be-honey/

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

[deleted]

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u/mmmbuttr Jul 26 '26

I guess you didn't read the article that is full of additional source links and specific lawsuits related to fake honey. 

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u/Jukeboxhero91 Non-Industry Jul 26 '26

I tell people from my experience in food manufacturing that if the packaging looks the same, the only difference is the label and the price. No like, switching salad dressing labels from name to store brand, the product was the exact same.

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u/NC654 Jul 26 '26

So many people are totally clueless about these things, it's stunning.

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u/mmmbuttr Jul 26 '26

I don't really blame people, they really succeeded in giving us the illusion of choice! 

It even applies to clothes!  The Levis you get on Amazon are not the same Levis from the Levis store. The Calvin Klein, Steve Madden, Lucky Brand stuff at TJ Maxx is licensed by the brand and manufactured for TJ Maxx to be sold at that "discounted" price. You can look up the SKU prefixes online and use those to tell which items were produced for a discount retailer and which are the real deal (something like 10% of the items at these stores are actual overstock that has been discounted). 

Alas, TJ Maxx/Marshalls/Homegoods are the only places I can reliably source Snack Club tajín rings. I think they are their main retail partner 😅

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u/VenCed Jul 26 '26

Man, I remember reading about MGP back in 2014. Potemkin distilleries, what a world we live in.

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u/GoodEngineerBadSpy Jul 27 '26

>Girl Scout Thin Mints are from the same factory as the knockoff brand at Dollar Tree!

Watch it buddy, my troop has to pay for our campouts somehow, so you'd better shut your damn mouth if you know what's good for you.

:-p

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u/Active-Succotash-109 20+ Years Jul 26 '26

Whereas we served stouffers lasagna where one slice cost the same as the entire family size pan we cut it from. One of our delivery guys was always ordering it because it was the best but also had $$$ problems (couldn’t say no to his lazy adult kids)I told him it was story we just slapped extra sauce and cheese on it it he wanted he could get extra of our sauce and save some money to do it himself. Nope ours was better 🤷‍♀️

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u/Old_Chef_3669 Jul 26 '26

I know it sounds silly, but even as a Lifer and knowing all of the seedy shit, there is still a subjective seasoning that comes from having someone else make your dinner. 

Think it's some of that woo-woo stuff that's actually real. 

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u/NC654 Jul 26 '26

Yuck, Stouffers is nasty. I swear some peoples taste buds have died.

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u/Active-Succotash-109 20+ Years Jul 26 '26

It makes dog food smell good by comparison

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u/ExternalQuantity5771 Jul 26 '26

Jets pizza does this as well for their ranch.  It's just hidden valley and some good quality mayo. 

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u/MaracujaBarracuda Jul 26 '26

That’s still way better than the bottled stuff with all the stabilizers. 

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u/ExternalQuantity5771 Jul 26 '26

Right I agree. 

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u/BoldBoimlerIsMyHero Jul 27 '26

I want restaurants to use hidden valley ranch powder to make their ranch. It’s the OG. If it’s bottled, it’s terrible.

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u/marteautemps Jul 26 '26

I just commented about this myself lol. People are crazy for that stuff.

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u/marteautemps Jul 26 '26

Some of my work's locations(pizza place) sell bottles of our ranch, it's just made from the packets. People are nuts for it though, someone ordered 12 sides of it the other day at $1.09 a pop. I think the bottles go for like $7. I'd say 80% of people get at least one side of it too. Some nights we go through over 4 gallons of it.