One example of this is Breyers ice cream. They are the oldest ice cream company in the US, had a great reputation, and heavily marketed that they only used high quality all natural ingredients until they got bought up by Unilever who stuffed it full of artificial ingredients and fillers to the point where they could no longer legally call their product "ice cream" and had to relabel their products as "frozen dairy dessert". You'd think that doing that would have tanked the company, but they're still one of the top brands globally and in the US. Unilever took advantage of a company's reputation for quality, quietly filled the product with shit, and made a fortune because people continue to eat it up. There are plenty of competitors making actual ice cream too.
I'm always going to suggest the long-running farmer cooperative. Salt & Straw is good (they have them down here in California too) but they're just a compelling buyout offer away from going down the Breyers path.
This happens all the time with clothes too. Even the "made in england" dr martins are trash compared to old ones, and that's just one small real life example of a "they don't made them like they used to" boomerism.
