These Popular Donuts Have Longtime Fans Doing A Double-Take At The Box

There are several options for packaged pastries at the supermarket, but when you hear "Entenmann's," you're probably picturing that box of chocolate donuts or crumb donuts right away. Maybe you fought with your family about whether the donuts were best served chilled or warmed, but there was probably one thing you could agree on: If those donuts were on BOGO, you were taking some home. As nostalgic as the brand is, customers have expressed frustration at the state of Entenmann's donuts, claiming that the product just doesn't taste the same as it did back in the day.

"I broke down and bought Entenmann's donuts," explained one customer on Facebook, continuing that the donuts "tasted like crap," and "like plastic," finishing out that the flavor was "nothing like we remember." The donuts didn't even rank highly on our list of 12 store-bought donut brands, which is saying something. Another unhappy customer from Reddit said that "whatever happened at Entenmann's ruined it," while someone further down the Reddit chain said that they "felt so sad when the taste started to change." Once upon a time, customers didn't mind the powdered chins and chocolate fingers associated with eating Entenmann's donuts, but nowadays, customers seem to walk away saying things like, "I bought my last box two weeks ago...NEVER again," in Facebook forums.

Some fans speculate that the reason Entenmann's donuts taste so different is due to a change in ownership, when the company changed hands from the Entenmann family itself to a large corporate owner, but Entenmann's has never confirmed or denied this. Other customers argue that the change is simply due to the way ingredients are made, meaning even if it is still the original recipe, regulations on ingredients are so different today that the donuts are bound to taste different. In 2023, the company released Donut Cakes, a new product with no artificial colors or high fructose corn syrup, which suggests ingredient improvements in the factory, but doesn't prove a change to the original donut recipe (and those are still not the absolute best Entenmann's snack cakes).

The only confirmed change to Entenmann's donuts in the last decade was the donut box itself, which caused an uproar from fans in the early 2020s. Hurricane Ida severely damaged Entenmann's packaging facility in Pennsylvania, so for a few years, the donut boxes were missing their classic cellophane window and were instead packaged in plain cardboard boxes. Despite the temporary change to the boxes, Entenmann's confirmed in a press release that there were "no change[s] to any of the products." Eventually, the brand went back to its original cellophane window packaging, and now fans are left to wonder whether the donuts are worthy of being included on our list of iconic store-bought food brands that changed their recipe or not.