February 8th seemed like a normal morning. Get up, turn on the pc, feed and water my birds, then make breakfast. Normal. I started my coffee, then turned on my toaster oven to heat up a Great Value Seasoned Potato Hash Brown patty, and started cooking it once the oven was hot enough. Something I’ve done most days for at least six months.
But February 8th was not normal. When the hash brown patty was done, I smelled onions, which is odd because I’m so very careful about my onion allergy, one a nurse described to me as “near fatal” or potentially depending on how much i consume before getting suitable medical attention. Despite the warning from the smell, I take a couple hasty bites. Normal rush so i could start work – I’m sure you rush your breakfast too sometimes.
Ten minutes later the pain started. Anaphylaxis was setting in as my immune system started reacting to the onions in the hash brown patty. Finding the box i read the ingredient label – then compared it with the same label (also featuring the cooking instructions) from a package bought in 2023. Sure enough, my belly wasn’t lying: the hash brown patties bought in late January 2024 added onions to the recipe.
Waiting a few minutes so I could receive the week’s grocery delivery order and take emergency antihistamine medication (which worked), I went to walmart.com to first ask for a refund for the hash browns, then talk to an agent about it.
Walmart’s response: it’s my fault for getting onion exposed because i didn’t read the ingredients before I ordered it. Even when I reminded them that in 2023 I bought exactly the same item without issue and that in 2023 these hashbrowns were made of just potatoes, some oil, and preservatives Walmart was adamant and dug in. It was “caveat emptor” buyer beware. I didn’t read the ingredients this time and therefore it’s on me to buy something i’m allergic to. Never mind that there was no mention of the addition of the onions or that the recipe had changed outside of that ingredient list that is more than 3 screens down from the overall production description. The only thing that changed on that product page was the addition of the onions, buried in the fine print.
Legally, Walmart is right: technically since onion was in the fine print, they can say they warned me. But that assumes customers will read all the fine print every time for every grocery item bought – which we don’t unless alerted to a possible change. The default mindset and assumption of consumers is that products do not change in formulation. Package size, yes. Price, yes. But not formulation. A coke classic is a coke classic. A box of original Cheerios is a box of original cheerios. When major brands change what’s in a food, they almost always tell consumers.
Walmart did not. Not a simple “brand new recipe, a taste you’ll love” which would have signaled “oh, maybe i need to look at the details to see what changed.”
A simple highlight along those lines would have prevented my exposure to onions. I would have known that the Great Value version was toxic to me and to go buy a similar product from a different brand. Problem solved.
Except Walmart chose to bury that information in the fine print and that is greatly concerning to me as a consumer with food allergies. Burying information critical to my health is not something I take lightly – nor do I think you take it lightly either. It’s frightening to me to think that Walmart’s store brand is so untrustworthy that I have to check every product I buy from them every single time.
I already spend more to get those national brands because they are more reliable and much less often resort to adding fillers like onions to their products. This latest incident drives me further from the Great Value brand. I can’t trust it. My life and my health are more important than saving a few cents here and there. Doctors and emergency hospital visits cost more than the difference between Great Value and the national brands.
All at a time when affording the basics is getting harder and harder – not because of political decisions made in DC as so many people believe – but mostly because of corporate greed.
I need to spend less, not more, on food. Sadly spending less with the Great Value brand could cost me my health and my life. That’s not a “great value” to me.
Laurel A. Rockefeller 