03-15-2020, 01:08 PM
This is a place to talk about items of food and drink that (as far as you know, at least) are not sold in your country. Maybe you've had them while you were abroad, or maybe you've just heard of them on the internet - but, either way, this is the place to post them. (Do note that this thread is not for food products that have been discontinued altogether, and are no longer sold anywhere. However, if a food product has been discontinued in your country, then it does count as long as it's still sold somewhere else in the world today)
I'll start with an example of a drink from that last category: one which is common outside the UK, but no longer sold within our borders. Dasani water is not sold in Britain - and, the following video by Tom Scott explains why not:
I'd recommend watching the video for a full explanation, but I'll try to give a quick summary. When bottled water first became common in Britain (around the early 1990s), British customers had a very different attitude towards it from American customers. Over in the US, consumers who bought bottled water really did expect nothing more than just bottled water: from their point of view, they were simply paying for the convenience. On the other hand, British customers were expecting mineral water - which, after all, isn't something you can get from your tap at home. This attitude was reinforced by the 1992 Christmas special of Only Fools and Horses - in which main character Del Boy ran a scam by bottling tap water and selling it (and then getting his comeuppance when the water got contaminated). This episode was seen by around 20 million people on Christmas Day 1992 - and, most likely, by millions more in subsequent repeats (on cable and satellite channels, for example).
Fast-forward to 2004, when Coca-Cola launched Dasani in the UK. To be fair to them, they never claimed that it was mineral water: they never pretended it was anything other than a purified, treated, bottled version of the tap water that everyone can get at home. However, about three weeks after the launch, somebody at a press association noticed the similarities between this and the Only Fools and Horses episode (heck, Dasani's water treatment plant was only about 10 miles from Peckham, where that episode was set). The media ran with this... and, it was a PR disaster: people felt ripped off, and Dasani became an overnight punchline. For a while, Coca-Cola persisted with Dasani - but then, a batch of it got contaminated... just like in the Only Fools and Horses episode. This completely killed the brand: all bottles of Dasani were recalled, they never re-appeared, and the planned launches in France and Germany were scrapped.
So, do you have any more examples of food and drink products that are sold elsewhere, but not in your country?
I'll start with an example of a drink from that last category: one which is common outside the UK, but no longer sold within our borders. Dasani water is not sold in Britain - and, the following video by Tom Scott explains why not:
I'd recommend watching the video for a full explanation, but I'll try to give a quick summary. When bottled water first became common in Britain (around the early 1990s), British customers had a very different attitude towards it from American customers. Over in the US, consumers who bought bottled water really did expect nothing more than just bottled water: from their point of view, they were simply paying for the convenience. On the other hand, British customers were expecting mineral water - which, after all, isn't something you can get from your tap at home. This attitude was reinforced by the 1992 Christmas special of Only Fools and Horses - in which main character Del Boy ran a scam by bottling tap water and selling it (and then getting his comeuppance when the water got contaminated). This episode was seen by around 20 million people on Christmas Day 1992 - and, most likely, by millions more in subsequent repeats (on cable and satellite channels, for example).
Fast-forward to 2004, when Coca-Cola launched Dasani in the UK. To be fair to them, they never claimed that it was mineral water: they never pretended it was anything other than a purified, treated, bottled version of the tap water that everyone can get at home. However, about three weeks after the launch, somebody at a press association noticed the similarities between this and the Only Fools and Horses episode (heck, Dasani's water treatment plant was only about 10 miles from Peckham, where that episode was set). The media ran with this... and, it was a PR disaster: people felt ripped off, and Dasani became an overnight punchline. For a while, Coca-Cola persisted with Dasani - but then, a batch of it got contaminated... just like in the Only Fools and Horses episode. This completely killed the brand: all bottles of Dasani were recalled, they never re-appeared, and the planned launches in France and Germany were scrapped.
So, do you have any more examples of food and drink products that are sold elsewhere, but not in your country?
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