Failed food launches

Failed food launches

Worth staying hungry for

Change can be an incredible thing. History has given us numerous examples of this.

Food history, however, has done the opposite. While Heston Blumenthal has used innovation to attract brave foodies to his expensive eateries, the big boys have managed to invent some atrocities that even a stray dog would turn his nose up at.

With the news this week that Tesco are releasing a doomed strawberries and cream sandwich (cue uncontrollable, Exorcist-style vomit), we have a tribute to food products we've not loved but lost nonetheless.

(Main Image: edans)

1. McLobster

Anyone who's heard the eerie silence that follows a Filet-O-Fish order at McDonald's will be aware that seafood has no real place underneath the golden arches. Try telling that to those crazy New England types. Their self-explanatory McLobster cropped up in their local franchises and it's not a pretty sight. Best filed alongside the McPizza, McPasta and McHotdog. McCanned.

(Image: jonchia)

2. Coca-Cola Blak

Have you ever asked yourself what could improve a can of coke? Has your answer ever been double the caffeine and a smattering of coffee? No, didn't think so. Shamefully, no one at Coca-Cola really considered this and they created Coca-Cola Blak, a drink so powerful it could kick-start the entire contents of a scrapyard. It was discontinued in no time and surprisingly didn't cause any heart attacks (that we know of). Tasted awful though. Just ask Anderson Cooper.

(Image: Like_the_Grand_Canyon)

3. Tesco's Lasagne Sandwich

'Amusingly' known as the Lasandwich and Lasarnie in various papers, this befuddling combination attracted a fair amount of press attention last year, in the UK. The only reaction it received from consumers though was total disgust. With 26.9g of fat, it provided 40% of your suggested daily intake. Luckily it didn't pose much of a threat as only a select few were tempted. The same select few who have to book two seats on a plane each.

(Image: Rex Features)

4. EZ Squirt

Last time we checked (lie: we never have) people have always been happy with the colour of ketchup. Tomatoes are red. Ketchup, made from tomatoes, is also red. Move on. Heinz, the people who should really know about these things, decided that it would be necessary to bring out green, purple, blue and 'mystery' coloured ketchup turning a popular sauce into a terrifying experiment. Children and the colour-blind were nonplussed. The rest of humanity wept.

(Image: Rex Features)

5. Ice Cream Monster Munch

Now, to be fair to Monster Munch they've never been seen as anything other than a product for the slightly richer kid on the way home from school (a packet was a bit pricier than Space Raiders) but this really was pushing it. Alongside your standard pickled onion flavour, there was for a brief period a vanilla ice cream variety. Salt was replaced with sugar and success was replaced with crushing failure. Space Raiders laughed all the way to the bank (to exchange their coppers). Apologies to our US readers who may not have heard of the "Monster Munch". The pickled onion flavour is a snack worthy of the gods. If the gods don't mind bad breath.

6. Dasani

Bottled water is a pretty hard thing to get wrong. Except if it's made by the Coca-Cola company. Back in 2004, their Dasani water seemed to find its way into the hands of every other yuppie in the country yet soon after, it was revealed to be nothing more than tap water from Sidcup in Kent. Apparently it's still going strong in the USA. But then again so is country music.

(Image: Rex Features)

7. Tesco's Strawberries & Cream Sandwich

Okay so we're being a bit presumptuous about this one as it's only just been released but carrying on their seemingly endless quest to create sandwiches that nobody wants, Tesco have truly outdone themselves this time. To 'celebrate' Wimbledon, they have added strawberries, clotted cream and jam to bread. We haven't read the bible for a while but this has to be breaking one of the ten commandments right?

Tags: food, funny