Food Brands Trivia
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50 free Food Brands trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Every supermarket shelf is a museum of accidents, inventions and marketing gambles. A soup can copied a college football kit, a biscuit was named after a racehorse, a spread was renamed to rescue a joke slogan, and a can designer asked to be buried in his own packaging. This quiz covers fifty of those stories from the United States, Britain, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa: who founded the companies, what the names actually mean, where the logos came from, which products were pulled from shelves and which were quietly rebranded. It suits pub quiz hosts, trivia night organisers and anyone who reads the back of the packet. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave knowing more than when you started.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Chemist Fredric Baur asked that some of his ashes be buried in the tube-shaped can he designed for which snack?
Pringles
Pringles honoured the wish: on the way to the funeral home his children stopped to buy a can, briefly debated the flavour, and settled on Original for part of his ashes.
Q 02Nestlé is a Swiss giant, but its founder Henri Nestlé was born and trained as a pharmacist's apprentice in which country?
Germany
Germany: he was born Heinrich Nestle in Frankfurt in 1814 and became Henri Nestlé only after settling in Vevey; the surname means 'little nest', which is why he put a nest of birds in the logo.
Q 03Early bottles of 7 Up, Charles Leiper Grigg's lemon-lime soda, claimed to contain which drug?
Lithium citrate
Lithium citrate put the 'Lithiated' in the early label 7Up Lithiated Lemon Soda: Grigg reckoned the supposed health benefits of lithia, a drug now used to steady mood swings, would help it sell.
Q 04Starbucks took its name from Starbuck, the chief mate in which 1851 novel?
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick supplied the name almost by accident: co-founder Gordon Bowker said the book had nothing to do with the coffee shop and the sound simply seemed right.
Q 05Reuben Mattus coined Häagen-Dazs in the Bronx to sound as if his ice cream came from which country?
Denmark
Denmark was picked as a tribute to its treatment of Jews during World War II; the made-up words mean nothing in Danish, which has no umlaut ä.
Q 06Gatorade was developed in 1965 by Robert Cade's team for the sweating football players of which school?
University of Florida
University of Florida doctors mixed it for the school's Gators, hence the name, and after losing the 1967 Orange Bowl to them Georgia Tech's coach said: 'We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference.'
Q 07Red Bull was adapted from Krating Daeng, a drink Dietrich Mateschitz found curing his jet lag in which country?
Thailand
Thailand's Krating Daeng was launched by Chaleo Yoovidhya, and Mateschitz partnered with him to sell a Westernised version of the drink.
Q 08Betty Crocker, whose signature answered customers' baking letters to flour millers Washburn-Crosby from 1921, was what?
A fictional character
A fictional character: 'Crocker' honoured a retired executive, 'Betty' simply sounded friendly, and her signature was picked in a contest among the company's women employees.
Q 09Which soda, first served by pharmacist Charles Alderton at a Waco, Texas drugstore, is a year older than Coca-Cola?
Dr Pepper
Dr Pepper began as Alderton's attempt to bottle the smell of the drugstore's mingled fruit syrups, and before it had a name regulars simply asked him to shoot them a 'Waco'.
Q 10Yakult, the probiotic milk drink sold in tiny bottles, first went on sale in 1935 in which country?
Japan
Japan: microbiologist Minoru Shirota cultured the strain that bears his name in 1930, and the brand name was adapted from 'jahurto', the Esperanto word for yoghurt.
Q 11Indomie, the instant noodle brand launched in 1972 and also made in Nigeria since 1995, was created in which country?
Indonesia
Indonesia is in the name: 'Indo' plus 'mie', an old spelling of the local word for noodles. Nigeria took to it so strongly that its makers built Africa's largest instant-noodle factory there.
Q 12'Made in Scotland from girders' was the long-running slogan of which Scottish soft drink?
Irn-Bru
Irn-Bru was sold as Iron Brew until after the Second World War; the respelling came because the drink was never brewed, and its only iron is a trace of ammonium ferric citrate.
Q 13The image on every Marmite jar shows a 'marmite', which in French is a large, covered what?
Cooking pot
Q 21India pulled Maggi 2 Minute Noodles from shelves in 2015 after state tests reported excess levels of what?
Lead
Lead was the finding from food inspectors in Uttar Pradesh; Nestlé disputed the tests but recalled the noodles nationwide, a debacle that cost it around half a billion dollars.
Q 22Vimto, created in Manchester in 1908 by herb and spice wholesaler John Noel Nichols, was first sold under what name?
Vim Tonic
Vim Tonic, or 'Vimtonic' in its maker's own history, was a herbal tonic meant to give drinkers vim and vigour, sold to cafes and temperance bars before the name was shortened.
Q 23Which US state's Senate declared Jell-O a favourite snack of the state in 2001?
Utah
Cooking pot is right: in French a marmite is a lidded pot for boiling and stewing, and the spread itself was first sold in small earthenware pots before moving to glass jars in the 1920s.
Q 14Dutch journalist Teun van de Keuken founded Tony's Chocolonely in 2005 as a protest against what in the cocoa trade?
Slavery
Slavery and child exploitation on cocoa farms were the target, and 'Chocolonely' nods to van de Keuken feeling like the only person in the industry who cared.
Q 15Aunt Jemima pancake mix, sold as the first 'ready-mix' in 1889, was rebranded in 2021 under what name?
Pearl Milling Company
Pearl Milling Company revived the name of the St. Joseph, Missouri mill where the mix was first developed, after PepsiCo retired the Aunt Jemima branding.
Q 16Campbell's cans went red and white in 1898 after an executive admired the football kit of which Ivy League school?
Cornell
Cornell's crisp carnelian red won over executive Herberton Williams, and the can he inspired later became an Andy Warhol pop-art icon.
Q 17Facing rival Marmite, Vegemite was renamed in 1928 with which pun, as in 'If Marmite, then …'?
Parwill
Parwill, as in 'if Ma might, then Pa will', failed to catch on and the original name returned; sales only took off later, helped by competitions that gave away Pontiac cars.
Q 18The '-vril' in Bovril came from a life-giving substance in The Coming Race, an 1871 novel by which author?
Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Vril-ya were a superior race powered by an electromagnetic fluid called Vril, which John Lawson Johnston borrowed for his beef extract.
Q 19Milo, the malt drink Nestlé launched at the 1934 Sydney Royal Easter Show, takes its name from an ancient Greek what?
Athlete
Athlete Milo of Croton was legendary for his power, and chemist Thomas Mayne wanted a 'completely balanced food drink' to match.
Q 20Ovaltine, long a favourite in Britain, was invented in 1904 as Ovomaltine in which country?
Switzerland
Switzerland: chemist Albert Wander created it in Bern, naming it for the egg (ovum) and malt in the recipe, and the name was trimmed to Ovaltine when it reached the British market.
Utah embraced the dessert that carpenter Pearle Wait devised in LeRoy, New York, in 1897; short of capital, he sold the trademark two years later for just $450.
Q 24Momofuku Ando, who invented instant noodles in 1958 and Cup Noodles in 1971, founded which Japanese company?
Nissin
Nissin still makes Cup Noodles, and Ando's story, including his wife Masako's role, became a Japanese television drama.
Q 25Calpis, sold in America as Calpico, was inspired by soured milk its founder drank among herders in which region?
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is where Kaiun Mishima found that the herders' soured milk restored his digestion; he launched Calpis in 1919, and the Calpico name is said to spare English speakers an unfortunate echo.
Q 26Shin Kyuk-ho named Lotte, founded in Tokyo in 1948, after Charlotte, the heroine of a novel by which author?
Goethe
Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther so impressed the Korean-born founder that its heroine gave her name to a company now behind Lotteria and Lotte World.
Q 27Arnott's Tim Tam biscuits, launched in 1964, were named by Ross Arnott after a horse he saw win which 1958 race?
Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby winner Tim Tam caught Ross Arnott's eye at the 1958 race; the biscuit itself came from a colleague's world trip that year, which ended with a vow to better Britain's Penguin bar.
Q 28Sanitarium, the company behind Australia and New Zealand's Weet-Bix, is wholly owned by which church?
Seventh-day Adventist
Seventh-day Adventist ownership has a striking side effect: because the owner is a religious body, neither the Australian nor the New Zealand company pays company tax on its profits.
Q 29Danone is a French giant today, but Isaac Carasso founded it in 1919, naming it after his son, in which city?
Barcelona
Barcelona, not France, was the birthplace: Carasso was inspired by Nobel laureate Élie Metchnikoff's yoghurt research, and son Daniel took the brand to Paris in 1929.
Q 30Which tea company, owned by India's Tata since 2000, was first to sell tea bags in Britain, in 1953?
Tetley
Tetley grew out of two Yorkshire brothers, Joseph and Edward, who started out selling salt, added tea to their wares and in time set up as tea merchants.