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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: part of Baur's cremated remains went into an Original-flavour can in his grave, the rest into an urn buried beside it.
Q 02What does 'Nestle', the Swabian-dialect surname of Frankfurt-born Henri Nestlé, founder of the Swiss food giant, mean?
A small bird's nest
A small bird's nest is what the name means, which is why the company logo shows young birds being fed: the family coat of arms had three chicks in a nest for three founding brothers.
Q 037 Up, created by Charles Leiper Grigg in 1928, at first claimed to contain which drug?
Lithium citrate
Lithium citrate featured in the drink's early claims; Grigg launched it a year before the Wall Street crash of 1929.
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 in 1959 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 researchers built the drink for the school's Gators to replace the water and electrolytes they lost on the field, and the team's nickname gave it its name.
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, created in 1921 by flour millers Washburn-Crosby to answer customer letters, is what?
A fictional character
A fictional character from the start, Betty Crocker was invented to give a personal touch to product questions and later got a painted portrait for packaging and cookbooks.
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 was first sold commercially in 1885 at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store, a year before Coca-Cola appeared in Atlanta.
Q 10Yakult, fermented with a strain named for scientist Minoru Shirota, first went on sale in 1935 in which country?
Japan
Japan is where Shirota strengthened his Lactobacillus casei strain in 1930 and helped found Yakult Honsha in 1935 to sell the drink.
Q 11Indomie, the instant noodle brand launched in 1972 and also made in Nigeria since 1995, was created in which country?
Indonesia
Indonesia is home to Indomie's maker Indofood, founded by tycoon Sudono Salim, who also owned the Bogasari flour mills.
Q 12'Made in Scotland from girders' was the long-running slogan of which Scottish soft drink?
Irn-Bru
Irn-Bru's girders line refers to its rusty colour, though the only metal in the recipe is a 0.002% dose of an iron additive.
Q 13The image on every Marmite jar shows a 'marmite', which in French is a large, covered what?
Cooking pot
Cooking pot is the meaning, an earthenware or metal one; the Australian rival Vegemite in turn took its name from Marmite's.
Q 21India pulled Maggi 2 Minute Noodles from shelves in 2015 after tests found up to 17 times the permitted level of what?
Lead
Lead was the finding from regulators in Uttar Pradesh, along with unexpectedly high MSG; Nestlé had held 90% of India's instant-noodle market before the ban.
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, with vim meaning vigour, was shortened to Vimto by Nichols in 1912; the drink has since been turned into sweets and an ice lolly.
Q 23Jell-O was trademarked in 1897 by Pearle Bixby Wait, a carpenter and cough-syrup maker in LeRoy, in which state?
New York
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 Marmite, Vegemite was sold from 1928 to 1935 under which punning name from the slogan 'Marmite but …'?
Parwill
Parwill flopped, and the spread went back to being Vegemite in 1935, the year founder Fred Walker died and Kraft Foods took over the brand.
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, still called Ovomaltine at home, was developed by chemist Albert Wander in 1904 in which city?
Bern
Bern was the birthplace, and the name joins ovum, Latin for egg, to malt, its two original key ingredients; production moved to nearby Neuenegg in 1927.
New York's village of LeRoy is where Wait and his wife May flavoured granulated gelatin and sugar with strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon.
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 25The milky Japanese drink Calpis is sold in North America under which name, chosen to avoid an English echo?
Calpico
Calpico avoids the sound of 'piss', though the katakana name stays on the packaging; founder Kaiun Mishima was inspired by fermented mare's milk he tasted in Mongolia.
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 impressed Arnott on a world trip hunting for new product ideas, and the biscuit went on sale on 10 September 1964.
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 dates to the church's health-food mission, and the flagship Weet-Bix is sold across Australia and New Zealand.
Q 29Danone, named by Isaac Carasso after his son's nickname 'petit Daniel', was founded in 1919 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 the first to sell tea bags in the United Kingdom, in 1953?
Tetley
Tetley began as Joseph Tetley & Co., tea merchants since 1837, and was bought by Tata Tea in 2000; by 1990 it was making 20 billion tea bags a year.