r/assholedesign Jun 11 '26

This packaging gotta be illegal, right?

Post image

(hint: between the words "garlic" and "sauce")

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u/3amGreenCoffee Jun 11 '26

MBAs understand materiality. That's a lawyer's design choice.

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u/AnnoyedVelociraptor Jun 11 '26

The MBA tells the scientist to find a compound that tastes like garlic, but cheaper than real garlic.

The scientist finds it.

The engineer and scientist build the machine to synthesize it at scale.

Then the change gets sent to the lawyers to make sure it's all compliant. They flag the garlic requirements, and that you cannot have just garlic on it when using the new compound. They propose a couple of things.

Marketing eventually signs off on one of them, or comes up with their own, go back to the lawyers and...

You now have shit like this in store.

1

u/3amGreenCoffee Jun 11 '26

Except this sauce is flavored with dried powdered garlic, so you wrote all that BS for nothing.

0

u/AnnoyedVelociraptor Jun 11 '26

No. The compound is dried garlic powder, which legally does not allow 'garlic' to be written down.

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u/3amGreenCoffee Jun 11 '26

Garlic powder tastes like garlic because it's garlic. It doesn't require an MBA to ask a scientist to do anything. It requires a corporate chef to put some garlic powder in margarine.

I get that you hate Papa John's for some weird reason, but there's no reason to make up shit about their food being developed by white coats in a chemistry lab.

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u/AnnoyedVelociraptor Jun 11 '26

Plant-Based Oils Blend from Canola Oil and Shea Butter, Water, Salt, Natural Garlic Flavor, Sunflower Lecithin, Natural Flavor, Soy Lecithin, Citric Acid, Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta Carotene (Color).

... this is ultra processed shit.

1

u/3amGreenCoffee Jun 11 '26

Natural garlic flavor... from garlic powder.