Jessica Mendoza

When they were ready, he served them in two bowls, and I tried each of them while blindfolded.

Okay, I'm going to start with the right one.

Okay, that one tastes like mac and cheese.

You cooked them really well.

That's also really good.

The pasta texture is a little bit different.

I figured out which was which pretty quickly.

Goudal's had that slightly earthier texture to the pasta, while Kraft was sort of silkier.

But they did taste remarkably similar.

They're both delicious, gotta say.

But yeah, I could tell just from the texture immediately that this was slightly different.

Kraft Heinz employees came to a similar conclusion, at least with Google's Chetty Mac flavor.

When it first hit store shelves in 2022, employees set up their own taste test.

Here's our colleague Jessie again.

But it was pretty close to Kraft's nostalgic flavor.

And the fact was that Goodall's was just one competitor in a growing number of brands in the mac and cheese market.

And that worried Kraft employees.

But Kraft Mac and Cheese was still selling a billion dollars worth of product a year, and company executives had more pressing things on their minds.

Other parts of the business were also struggling, from Oscar Mayer to Maxwell House.

According to Jesse, a lot of Kraft Heinz products just happen to be on the wrong side of consumer trends.