UK fans of the Swiss chocolate bar Toblerone are in for a rude awakening when they peel back the candy’s iconic triangular package: In an effort to cut costs, Toblerone’s makers Mondelez International have redesigned the bar with fewer peaks—and consumers definitely mind the gap.
As The Guardian reports, the decision to reduce the weight of their UK product was made in light of rising ingredient prices. Toblerone wrote on their Facebook page: “…to ensure Toblerone remains on-shelf, is affordable and retains the triangular shape, we have had to reduce the weight of just two of our bars in the UK.” Those two bars, the 400-gram and the 170-gram, are now 360 grams and 150 grams respectively thanks to large gaps where there were once solid chocolate chunks.
Unsurprisingly, Toblerone’s customer base hasn’t embraced the change. One Twitter user characterized the redesign as “a chocolate bar of disappointment” while another compared it to a bicycle rack. The classic look, originally meant to evoke the Swiss Alps, is now more reminiscent of Holland in the opinion of one Facebook commenter.
Toblerone’s announcement didn’t mention Brexit by name, but that hasn’t stopped some angered chocolate lovers from making the connection. Since the UK’s vote to leave the European Union in June, the devaluation of the British pound has had an impact on everything from model trains to Marmite. A shortage of the latter sent buyers into a panic last month before the pricing dispute between supermarkets and the maker was quickly settled. Toblerone fans aren’t feeling so optimistic about the outcome of this latest Brexit casualty:
In coming years, leaf peepers might still able to enjoy a road trip through fall foliage—but the display might not look the same. While foliage is notoriously difficult to predict, researchers suggest climate change may dull autumn’s vibrant red and yellow hues.
According to Nicole Cavender, vice president of science and conservation for Illinois’s Morton Arboretum, unpredictability caused by climate change—including extreme droughts and floods—could reduce the number of leaves on a tree, hindering the spectacle of foliage colors. One bad storm can change the entire year’s outlook for fall foliage.
Another effect will be the timing of the leaf change: Warmer temperatures generally cause trees to change colors later in the season. A group of researchers recently studied the effects of climate change on autumn phenology, or seasonal changes, and found that 70 percent of their study area (the Northern Hemisphere) experienced delayed foliage. Only the arid and semi-arid regions stayed unchanged.
Of course, Cavender notes, fall foliage doesn’t hinge on climate alone. Factors like the genetics of a tree, environmental conditions such as wind and strong rains, and the tree’s overall health all play an integral part.
While specifics remain up in the air, Cavender predicts that the growing number of frost-free days anticipated in the next 50 years will definitely dull the colors of some of the United States’ most popular fall trees.
The sugar maple, for example, known for its vibrant shades of yellow, orange, and red, is expected to decrease in abundance in America’s natural forests by 2100. It’s also one of many species whose natural habitats will shift north due to warming temperatures. The sugar maple isn’t alone: The yellow birch, beloved for its bright yellow fall leaves, will also migrate north—possibly above the Canadian border by the early 22nd century, according to National Geographic.
Trees aren’t the only species which will move as a result of changing climate: The range of insects are also predicted to dramatically change. The ash tree, which typically has yellow, red and even purple leaves in the fall, is particularly sensitive to insect-borne diseases. One such insect, the emerald ash borer in North America, has been decimating ash trees—although cold winters could help control the epidemic by reducing the insect population, very cold days have decreased by more than 30 percent in the last century, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
These somewhat dire predictions have already changed this fall’s display: This year’s extended summer temperatures caused foliage delays in popular leaf peeping spots from Massachusetts to Indiana, among other locations.
But there are some things—besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions—that we can do to help. Fall foliage effects—such as colors, vibrancy, and longevity of those colors—varies by type of tree. Cavender says that by planting a diverse assortment of tree species, we can pave the way for colorful autumns well into the future.
“As the climate changes, it’s critical to plant the right tree in the right environmental conditions,” Cavender tells mental_floss. “The more tree diversity you have, the more likely you are to get fall colors every year.”
Although Greek yogurt seems to be available everywhere you look, that wasn’t always the case. Fage, the company behind the top-selling Greek yogurt in Greece, began in Athens in 1926. Today, Fage sells dairy products in over 40 countries, using milk, cream, and live active cultures to create all natural yogurt, free of artificial sweeteners and preservatives.
1. IT ALL STARTED WITH A SMALL DAIRY SHOP IN ATHENS.
In 1926, Athanassios Filippou’s family opened a dairy shop in Patisia, a neighborhood in central Athens, Greece. The shop became popular amongst locals for its rich, creamy yogurt. Almost three decades later, in 1954, Filippou’s son Ioannis joined the family business and helped create a national wholesale network for yogurt, distributing the dairy shop’s yogurt all over Greece.
2. IT’S PRONOUNCED FAH-YEH. (IT DOESN’T RHYME WITH PAGE.)
From the Greek imperative word Φάγε—English translation: Eat—Fage is often mispronounced by those unfamiliar with it. Φάγε is also an abbreviation, as the four letters in the Greek word stand for Filippou Adelphoi Galaktokomikes Epicheiriseis—translation: Filippou Brothers Dairy Company—after Filippou’s sons, Ioannis and Kyriakos.
3. FAGE WAS THE FIRST BRANDED YOGURT IN GREECE.
In 1964, the Filippou brothers opened Fage’s first yogurt production plant in an Athens suburb. Over the next two decades, Fage continued to innovate. In 1975, Fage started selling containers of “Fage Total” branded yogurt to Greeks. Fage also expanded outside of Greece for the first time, exporting yogurt to the United Kingdom in 1983.
4. THE OWNER OF A GROCERY STORE IN NEW YORK INTRODUCED FAGE GREEK YOGURT TO THE U.S. …
In 1998, Costas Mastoras, the owner of a grocery store catering to Greek Americans, visited Fage in Greece to buy cheese to sell at his store in Astoria, Queens. Mastoras tried a sample of Fage’s strained yogurt and loved its thickness. After ensuring that he wouldn’t be breaking U.S. Department of Agriculture rules by importing the yogurt (since it contains live active cultures), Mastoras ordered 120 six-ounce yogurt containers and had them flown to New York.
5. … MAKING FAGE THE FIRST GREEK YOGURT EVER SOLD IN THE U.S.
The yogurt sold so well at Mastoras’s store that Fage created Fage USA in 2000 to sell the yogurt more widely in the U.S. Americans who tried Fage didn’t mind paying a little more for the Greek yogurt, which is less watery than regular yogurt. Fage’s Total yogurt is strained—four pounds of milk are used to create one pound of yogurt—and the yogurt doesn’t contain the watery whey.
6. BESIDES GREEK YOGURT, FAGE ALSO PRODUCES CHEESE AND MILK.
In the early 1990s, Fage started selling cheese and milk. Since 1991, Fage has produced cheeses like feta and gouda, but they’re not available in the U.S. Since 1993 in Greece, Fage has sold fresh milk that is pasteurized, homogenized, and packaged in its factories.
7. FAGE HAS A MASSIVE FACTORY IN UPSTATE NEW YORK.
In 2008, Fage opened a U.S. production plant in Johnstown, New York. After a multi-million dollar expansion of the factory in 2014, the New York Fage factory has the capacity to produce 160,000 tons of yogurt annually.
8. WILLEM DAFOE NARRATED FAGE’S FIRST TELEVISED COMMERCIALS IN THE U.S.
In 2011, Fage recruited actor Willem Dafoe, a.k.a. Green Goblin in the Spider-Man trilogy, to narrate televised commercials. Chef Bobby Flay has also done ads for the brand. More recent UK commercials for the Fage Total split cups (which have yogurt plus a separate compartment of a sweet mix-in like strawberry, honey, peach, cherry, key lime, blood orange, or raspberry pomegranate) feature a female narrator.
9. FAGE’S HEADQUARTERS ARE NO LONGER IN GREECE.
The financial crisis in Greece greatly impacted Fage. In 2012, Fage executives decided to move the company’s headquarters from Greece to Luxembourg to avoid Greece’s instability and depressed economy. Although Fage isn’t headquartered in Greece anymore, the company retains its authentic Greek heritage by continuing to own and operate yogurt, milk, and cheese factories in its home country.
10. FAGE WAS SUED FOR NOT BEING “GREEK” ENOUGH.
In 2014, two men in New York sued Fage (and Chobani, another Greek Yogurt company) for deceiving customers. In a class action lawsuit, Barry Stoltz and Allan Chang accused Fage of misleading customers into thinking that 0 percent yogurt means it has no sugar (the 0 percent refers to the milk fat) and of tricking customers into thinking that Fage is made in Greece when it’s really made in the U.S. The lawsuit is ongoing, but lawyers for Fage are working to get the lawsuit dismissed.
11. DESPITE ITS INTERNATIONAL GROWTH, FAGE REMAINS A FAMILY BUSINESS.
Fage’s parent company, Fage International S.A., is still completely owned and led by the Filippou family. In 2006, Athanassios Filippou’s grandchildren joined the company, continuing the Greek yogurt family business.
When a politician hits the campaign trail, it’s expected that he or she will press a plethora of palms and embrace a lot of infants. The handshaking makes sense, but the baby-kissing tradition is often an awkward, germy situation for everyone involved. So why does anyone do it?
It turns out there’s precedent for smooching chubby cheeks that goes back to Andrew Jackson, and maybe further. According to a story printed in 1887, Jackson, aware that baby-handling was part of the deal, eagerly grabbed a dirty-faced infant from his mother during an 1833 tour of New Jersey, declaring the tot “a fine specimen of American childhood.” Then he thrust the baby into the face of his Secretary of War, General John Eaton, and said, “Eaton, kiss him.” The secretary pretended to do so, everyone laughed, and the mother had a great story to tell her friends and family. Although there are several anachronisms in this story—the most obvious being that John Eaton had resigned from the position of Secretary of War two years prior—there have been several stories of politicians kissing babies since, including Abraham Lincoln.
Today, politicians believe that showing a softer side can help them win more votes; at the very least, they may sway the doting parent. In return, in a best case scenario, mom or dad can say their child met the future President of the United States. Worst case, it’s a photo op with a famous politician. Not a bad addition to the baby book.
Not everyone thinks baby-kissing is such a great tactic, however. After Benjamin Harrison politely declined to bestow a smooch on one in 1889, suffragist/activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton praised him, and quoted the editor of the New York Tribune, who wrote, “The parent who always expects the baby to be kissed, and the person who feels bound to kiss every baby that comes within reach are equally foolish and obnoxious characters. Children have a right to their kisses as well as older folks. They should not be made the prey of every officiously amiable person in their circle.”
Nonetheless, the tradition continued, even though some politicians expressed distaste for it. Richard Nixon refused to do it, worrying that such stunts would make him “look like a jerk.” Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate, disliked the practice, even once telling The New York Times, “As a mother, my instinctive reaction is how do you give your baby to someone who’s a total stranger to kiss, especially with so many colds going around? And especially when the woman is wearing lipstick? I mean, I find that amazing that someone would do that.’’ But she did it to keep the masses happy.
On the flip side, 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey defended his affection for children as genuine, stating that being around youngsters after long hours of glad-handing adults left him feeling “refreshed.”
Modern-day candidates are split: Bernie Sanders preferred to avoid baby-kissing, Hillary Clinton does it, and Donald Trump has, too. At the end of the day, as long as politicians think puckering up to a tot will help move the needle, the puzzling practice isn’t going away.
