BEAN A WHILE
Heinz confirms ‘iconic’ £1 staple is AXED after hundreds of shoppers beg for its return – but not all hope is lost
Find out why so many of our loved products end up vanishing from supermarket shelves
HEINZ has confirmed it has no immediate plans to bring back a fan favourite axed nearly a decade ago - but there is still some hope for shoppers.
Toast Toppers, cans of spread designed to go on top of toast, featured flavours such as Mushroom & Bacon, Ham & Cheese, and Chicken & Mushroom.
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The product was popular from around the 1970s onwards but was discontinued in 2015.
Some tins are now selling for upwards of £50 online, even when they're long past their expiry date, according to Aimee Foy, who runs a Toast Toppers community page on Facebook.
The page, dedicated to the infamous products, has over three thousand followers, and has renewed calls for Heinz to start producing the once loved goods again.
Foy told about her nostalgia for the product and how versatile it was.
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She added: "It was tasty, but also really simple and cheap, especially when you compare it to how much you have to spend if you're getting a meal delivered by Uber Eats or something."
She said there remained huge demand for the product and that it would prove especially popular given its relative affordability amid a cost of living crisis.
She continued: "It was only around £1 when they stopped doing it, but even at twice that price people would definitely still buy it.
"It's obviously not a la carte or anything, but we loved it - and I'm sure that people would jump on it if Heinz did decide to bring it back."
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Heinz itself has acknowledged the movement, jokingly posting a meme on Facebook at the start of the year about the canned goods.
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A Kraft Heinz spokesperson said: "Toast Toppers were a huge hit with Brits back in the '70s and '80s, but as consumer tastes and trends evolved, Toast Toppers sadly fell out of favour, so we took the decision to pull them from sale in 2015.
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"It simply wouldn't have been feasible to continue making them, despite the iconicity of this delicious teatime snack.
"We don't have any immediate plans to bring them back, but we'd never say never and have plenty of exciting innovations in the pipeline that we're confident consumers will love."
One to bring the products back has over 1000 signatures, and one last month on Facebook about the tinned treats garnered a massive response.
One user commented: "We loved these, wish they would bring them back."
Another added: "They were disgusting...but I loved them."
Countless others heaped praise on the products and expressed sadness for Heinz seemingly being un-keen to bring it back into production.
But Heinz has said it will "never say never" to bringing in the product back, so who knows what this campaign may be able to achieve.
Why are products axed or recipes changed?
ANALYSIS by chief consumer reporter James Flanders.
Food and drinks makers have been known to tweak their recipes or axe items altogether.
They often say that this is down to the changing tastes of customers.
There are a number of reasons why this could be done.
For example, government regulation, like the "sugar tax," forces firms to change their recipes.
Some manufacturers might choose to tweak ingredients to cut costs.
They may opt for an alternative that's cheaper, especially when costs are rising in order to keep prices stable.
For example, Tango Cherry disappeared from shelves in 2018.
It has recently returned after six years away, but as a sugar-free version.
Fanta removed sweetener from its sugar-free alternative earlier this year.
Suntory tweaked the flavour of its flagship Lucozade Original and Orange energy drinks.
While the amount of sugar in every bottle remains unchanged, the supplier swapped out the sweetener aspartame for sucralose.
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