Once great brands ...... now junk.

MarcusP12 · 03-12-2017 07:25AM

on the subject of computer brands which went to $hit or disappeared that were once great, surely commodore is right up there. I had a C64 back in the day and was far superior than the spectrum and amstrads at the time. Eventually I upgraded to an Amiga 500, again way better than the Atari ST, its only real mainstream rival unless you went for a decent more expensive PC. That was a class computer. Brilliant games at the time and I would say was at the forefront of gaming at the time. Then they brought out this CD32 unit to compete with the likes of the playstation I think and other consoles and it never took off and bam, commodore just seemed to disappear at the time. I'd say the ascendency of consoles and PC gaming (with more affordable PCs) probably killed it amongst other business reasons. I think the name still exists alright. Have really fond memories of it. Learned a bit of basic programming on the C64 which actually turned out to be useful in college years later. I think kids miss out on a lot of that kind of thing by jumping straight to gaming consoles.....

jbcaddy · 03-12-2017 08:42AM

Volkswagen
They tried to con the world about emmisions
And there warranty means absolutely nothing you may as well but a lada

Wanderer78 · 03-12-2017 08:56AM

jbcaddy wrote:

Volkswagen They tried to con the world about emmisions And there warranty means absolutely nothing you may as well but a lada

I suspect many are at similar games, 'profit maximisation' again!

Canis Lupus · 03-12-2017 09:24AM

5rtytry56 wrote: »

OnionBelt needs to have more faith in "The Eye Of the Tiger" as used in the ad for Kellogg's Frosties.

Right my own contribution today:

Creative

Well respected back in the day for their Soundblaster 16 soundcard.

Today:

Another also ran technology company making some pc gamegear and camcorders if not much else.

Somebody been watching Linus?

03-12-2017 09:39AM

JVC and Pioneer were the top sound systems in the 80s, with Pioneer especially esteemed for cars.

I had a JVC - "Just Very Clever" as the ads used to say - stereo system - this exact model - that had absolutely amazing sound quality.

I never see JVC in shops anymore.

PeterParker957 · 03-12-2017 04:35PM

MysticMonk wrote: »

fricatus wrote: »

Trump used to be a great brand, at least for non-New Yorkers*. When I was growing up, Trump used to epitomise glamour and success. Now look at the fcuker!

* As someone in the New York Post wrote a few months back: "We've always known Trump was a bozo. The rest of the country is only finding out now."

Well now he's the President so suck it up buttercup.

Always one.

Wanderer2010 · 03-12-2017 04:46PM

Remeber when HomeStead were the biggest brand name in Ireland, now they are reduced to cheap pasta and red lemonade...

Noveight · 04-12-2017 12:22AM

Loads of people have been giving out about Lucozade Orange being muck since they made changes. I used to drink it every now and again and tried a bottle of it yesterday. Bitterly disappointed

Breadsons · 04-12-2017 03:14AM

Cadburies were once great chocolate manufacturers until they got taken over by the US company Kraft. Their Easter eggs and other products became muck after they changed their recipes

Realt Dearg Sec · 04-12-2017 03:43AM

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Mario the plumber.

Yeah he's gone down the tubes altogether.

JackTaylorFan · 04-12-2017 06:27AM

Armitage Shanks - They were alright at first... but soon, it all went to ****.

thesandeman · 04-12-2017 07:20AM

Lemon Puffs. I think there used to be two producers back in the day.
The rectangular ones used to be amazing. Loads of sugary glazing on the puff bit and a proper lemony taste in the middle.
The round ones these days are mostly tasteless non-glazed cardboard with a tiny blob of lemon paste dropped in the middle (an occasional individual biscuit gets through the net and actually tastes about 40% of what the original ones used to).
They also have a ridiculous RRP of €1.99 for a small packet which seems way out of line with similar biscuits. They used to be occasionally discounted to 99c (I would bulk buy in the hope of finding that elusive rebel biscuit that secreted itself in the machine for more than a millisecond just so I could enjoy its sugary lemony crispy goodness) but now the 'discounted' price has risen to €1.32.

Sorry for the long post. I never realised I had such feelings for a biscuit.
Such a biscuit we shall never see again.

Widdershins · 04-12-2017 11:27AM

If they could make a profit back when they weren't just budget junk with a fancy-brand tag, why cant they make a profit by using better parts and workmanship nowadays? OK it won't be as much of a profit but they'd hardly go broke, would they?

There's some murmurings in the EU about making planned obsolescence a thing of the past.

jmayo · 04-12-2017 11:47AM

PLL wrote: »

When choosing shoes when my daughter started school I wanted Clarks for the reputation. The shop where we bought her uniform exclusively sold Hush Puppies, she tried on a pair and loved them so I just thought they look good enough quality, so I bought them.

Turns out they are fantastic shoes. They still looked in great quality at the end of the year. I looked back on her old Clarks shoes and they are coming apart and dented. She didn't even wear them as much as her school shoes.

I now always buy Ecco shoes, have had 4 pairs of Tracks over the years and still wear 15 year old ones out in garden.

Used to buy dubarry, because "they were Irish", but I found they started getting cra*ier.

MarcusP12 wrote: »

on the subject of computer brands which went to $hit or disappeared that were once great, surely commodore is right up there. I had a C64 back in the day and was far superior than the spectrum and amstrads at the time. Eventually I upgraded to an Amiga 500, again way better than the Atari ST, its only real mainstream rival unless you went for a decent more expensive PC. That was a class computer. ...

Do you remember the PCs from the 80s/90s.
Ok they were bulky but they were very well built, Amstrad aside.
Hell I used to stand on a IBM PS/2 to change a light bulb.
They were built like a brick sh**house.
And the rumour was they used to put them through a shaker test to make sure they didn't fall apart if they went through sever vibration.

whisky_galore · 04-12-2017 12:07PM

Not shoddy products per se, but misleading advertising: Lyons Tea pretending they are Irish in their advertising, when they no longer have an operation here.

Likewise Siucra (aka Nordzucker Ireland - imported from Germany), Jacobs Fig Rolls (produced in Malta)

Nekarsulm · 04-12-2017 01:01PM

Siucra is an interesting one. The entire Irish sugar industry was sold to Nordzucker by Greencore, who had gained possession of the EU quota allocated to Ireland, having had a report that the industry was unsustainable.
They sold the quota, sold the Sugar Company factory and machinery to Africa and sold the site in Carlow to some consortium who planned to build an Irish Silicon Valley there.
Nothing was ever built, the man who headed Greencore is Simon Coveneys brother, and a few years later it was revealed that the initial report which initiated the sale was completely flawed.

Sugar beet was one of the only consistently profitable tillage operations on Irish farms.

Gravelly · 04-12-2017 01:21PM

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Siucra is an interesting one. The entire Irish sugar industry was sold to Nordzucker by Greencore, who had gained possession of the EU quota allocated to Ireland, having had a report that the industry was unsustainable.
They sold the quota, sold the Sugar Company factory and machinery to Africa and sold the site in Carlow to some consortium who planned to build an Irish Silicon Valley there.
Nothing was ever built, the man who headed Greencore is Simon Coveneys brother, and a few years later it was revealed that the initial report which initiated the sale was completely flawed.

Sugar beet was one of the only consistently profitable tillage operations on Irish farms.

I've always believed that the destruction of the Irish sugar industry was one of the greatest ever heists perpetrated upon the Irish people, yet it gets little attention. To be part of that speaks, in my opinion, of someone who has no concern for the people of Ireland, and would, literally, sell them out for a song. In the light of recent developments, this bears remembering. When people in high places tell you they are carrying out a particular policy out of care or morality, look at how much care and morality they have shown in past dealings. Leopards and spots.

whisky_galore · 04-12-2017 01:46PM

I heard Greencore being lauded on Newstalk radio the other week on their latest acquisition or some such, there was a bit along the lines of 'those of a certain age might remember it as the Irish Sugar Company'.

Isn't it just something how such trouser-stuffing is so easily forgotten? Talk about killing the goose...

Nekarsulm · 04-12-2017 02:17PM

When your country is self sufficient in a foodstuff, and you sell off the security of supply, that takes a special kind of brass neck.
Nothing stopping farmers growing sugarbeet of course, its just it cant be processed into sugar in this country anymore.
The by-products are lost as well, beet pulp was an important animal feed, and the lime waste from the plant was an important product for soil fertility.
And this guy (the CEO) will have the ear of the next FG Taoiseach ........

foxy farmer · 04-12-2017 02:32PM

Gone since 2006. Greencore is now the largest manufacturer of sandwiches in the world. The amount of work and employment direct and indirect was huge. I worked in Mallow with a contractor back in 96. There was a multimillion investment going on there at the time. The whole place is a brown field site now. Mary Coughlan was Minister for Ag at the time. She'll be remembered for wiping out the sugar industry.

jippo nolan · 04-12-2017 02:46PM

foxy farmer wrote: »

Gone since 2006. Greencore is now the largest manufacturer of sandwiches in the world. The amount of work and employment direct and indirect was huge. I worked in Mallow with a contractor back in 96. There was a multimillion investment going on there at the time. The whole place is a brown field site now. Mary Coughlan was Minister for Ag at the time. She'll be remembered for wiping out the sugar industry.

It’s not the only industry she wiped out, she was asleep at the wheel when SR Technics went to the wall in 2009!

Kuva · 04-12-2017 02:53PM

jippo nolan wrote: »

It’s not the only industry she wiped out, she was asleep at the wheel when SR Technics went to the wall in 2009!

Seen her on the news the other day when their was talk of an election, still hanging around like a bad smell.

A primetime episode or some similar type show a few years back had some woman mention the "great deal" Ireland got when the sugar beet industry was wiped out.

Wtf?

Steve F · 04-12-2017 03:01PM

Deleted User wrote: »

JVC and Pioneer were the top sound systems in the 80s, with Pioneer especially esteemed for cars.

I had a JVC - "Just Very Clever" as the ads used to say - stereo system - this exact model - that had absolutely amazing sound quality.

I never see JVC in shops anymore.

Still using that one to this day...great machine.Brought it over from the UK with me when we moved here.I think I bought it around 1992...so over 25 years old and still going strong.Not one thing that doesn't work on it

Avatar MIA · 04-12-2017 03:34PM

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

jippo nolan · 04-12-2017 03:48PM

Kuva wrote: »

Seen her on the news the other day when their was talk of an election, still hanging around like a bad smell.

A primetime episode or some similar type show a few years back had some woman mention the "great deal" Ireland got when the sugar beet industry was wiped out.

Wtf?

You might bump into her on one of her many pub crawls around Donegal, two “short planks” comes to mind!

Vic_08 · 04-12-2017 04:57PM

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Siucra is an interesting one. The entire Irish sugar industry was sold to Nordzucker by Greencore, who had gained possession of the EU quota allocated to Ireland, having had a report that the industry was unsustainable.
They sold the quota, sold the Sugar Company factory and machinery to Africa and sold the site in Carlow to some consortium who planned to build an Irish Silicon Valley there.
Nothing was ever built, the man who headed Greencore is Simon Coveneys brother, and a few years later it was revealed that the initial report which initiated the sale was completely flawed.

Sugar beet was one of the only consistently profitable tillage operations on Irish farms.

Total corruption.

EU Sugar quotas are gone as of 2017, EU is set to go from being the largest importer to being a net exporter of sugar. A market where Ireland should have been in a great position to benefit from if not for the shysters who burned the entire industry to the ground for their own greed.

TallGlass · 04-12-2017 05:53PM

Vic_08 wrote: »

Total corruption.

EU Sugar quotas are gone as of 2017, EU is set to go from being the largest importer to being a net exporter of sugar. A market where Ireland should have been in a great position to benefit from if not for the shysters who burned the entire industry to the ground for their own greed.

Can it not be brought back at all?

Also, how do you manage to sell your national quote, that's a bit bizarre it was allowed to even happen.

rushfan · 04-12-2017 05:57PM

Radio Nova

Nekarsulm · 04-12-2017 06:40PM

9I don't even know how Greencore came to hold the quota, instead of the growers (who were limited to producing a certain tonnage, set by each farmers individual quota)
The EU wanted to reduce sugar production, to appease WTO demands on imports of cane sugar, and offered a compensation package.
I think the EU wanted to cut beet production by 6 million tons, and Ireland's share of that would come to 220,000 tons.
Greencore decided that such a cut in production would leave the Sugar business unprofitable for them, so decided to offer Ireland's total production to Europe under the compensation plan/sale to Nordzucker.
Greencore stood to receive a third of a billion euro compensation for their future losses from exiting the Sugar industry.
There was complete outrage when it became evident that the entire compensation would go to Greencore, and in the end the now ex-beet growers got 220 million and Greencore got 127 million euro, plus the monies from the sale of the factories at Mallow and Carlow .
I'm not a beet farmer, I live too far North here in Cavan and the climate and soil is unsuitable, but that's my understanding of it.
Add into the mix that the Govetnment held shares in Greencore, and had sold same for over 200 million, and Greencores 300 acres in Carlow was valued at 40 million at the time. I don't know what it sold for subsequently.

blade1 · 04-12-2017 06:52PM

Stretch Armstrong.
I pulled his arm off first go.

Once great brands ...... now junk.

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