this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Brands to avoid (feddit.uk)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Mobster@feddit.uk to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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Hi Everyone,

I wanted to share something that Iโ€™m hoping will help me when it comes to making better choices about what I buy. While this isn't about promoting European products in the first instance, it's designed to help me figure out which brands I currently use, but may need to avoid, so I can find better alternatives that are local, European, allied countries, or even values-led US brands if no other option exists.

Here's what I did:

  1. Got the idea from Reddit: I saw a post on Reddit with a visual of all the brands owned by big multinational companies. Really helpful to see the visual but there were literally thousands, and I wanted a text list I could feed into an AI chat as a reference document.

  2. Did Some Research: I looked up these multinational companies on Wikipedia which seemed to have a relatively updated list of subsidiary brands, focusing on the parent companies I wanted to steer clear of, like PepsiCo, Nestle etc.

  3. Cleaned Up the List: I used AI tool to organise everything into a neat PDF.

  4. Made It Easy to Use for me with AI: I added the PDF to a chat in Mistral so I can quickly check any products I see in my fridge or cupboard. The AI helps me spot any brands I should avoid. I can also just list the brands off using voice for ease/speed but accuracy suffers a bit. I may also be able to just take a picture but havenโ€™t tried that yet.

The image is the output.

Anybody with access to a simple list and an LLM could do this. Been inspired by the excellent websites and resources others have made and posted here, which I will use to find alternatives - but I first needed to know where the problems were!

Im hoping this will make it easier to buy stuff that aligns with my values. Hope this makes sense and helps someone else too!

Edit1: added link to source PDF containing list of companies and their brands. You can download this and search manually to avoid any use of AI. https://files.catbox.moe/jtmcb5.pdf

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[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Here's a canvas with a few extra lists to check against: https://chat.mistral.ai/chat/08f18f45-5236-4a4f-95c4-6d6a51b4e3f2

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thank you for this. I tried to replicate but Mistral only output a handful. Any advice?

[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can you see my prompt there? I didn't do anything else than activating the web search and running those prompts.

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I can, and thanks for clarifying. It is probably because I used the mobile app, as opposed to pc version - which I assume you used.

[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Yes, I did.

[โ€“] NotLemming@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can I just have an app pls? Do your favourite deity's work and make it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing.

It would be ideal to have a searchable database of brands/products, with label scan function. I'm imagining a user choice of boycott options with a little info given on what each boycott is about. So maybe selectable by mass grouping 'buy European, avoid US brands' or 'avoid brands supporting zionism' and then more individual choices 'avoid Nestlรฉ brands'.

If you really want to make me happy then also judge products for ultra processed foods and toxic ingredients like Yuka does.

And make it available on Izzydroid or similar.

Thanks in advance!

PS. That's not all, in my dreams there is a browser add on to judge my online shopping basket so I don't even have to search for brands/products.

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

Hi there. I really like your thinking. Iโ€™m not a professional developer, but I suspect itโ€™s only a matter of time that apps that do something like this are available.

Hereโ€™s a post I saw on a related community which describes something like what would make you happy :)

https://feddit.uk/post/25526618

Also, I tested my own very basic idea by taking a picture and uploading to the Mistral chat - it identified the products accurately, which was promising.

[โ€“] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Nestle is evil. While I appreciate trying to vote with your โ‚ฌ, Nestle is a pretty awful company. I donโ€™t even think itโ€™s a lesser evil. Choose carefully.

[โ€“] biofaust@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I know I am in the minority, but it's not like the rest of Switzerland should be supported economically or politically either.

Of course, Hungary should come first, but I think that having it in the EU gives us leverage that we will never have with Switzerland.

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago

100% agree. Nestle is evil.

[โ€“] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

OP said it was on the avoid list.

[โ€“] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I see that now. Thanks for pointing that out.

[โ€“] circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

A good idea, but be weary: LLMs will often give outputs that sound plausible but are actually not consistent with what you gave them. Ultimately, you should check the output every time.

At which point, it may be better to just have a detailed list and do a Find operation. Still plenty of applications for non-AI workflows.

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 0 points 1 week ago

True, there is always that risk.

[โ€“] figjam@midwest.social 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can I just have a chart or picture pls

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is the original chart I saw on r/BoycottUSA.

[โ€“] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Any way to get this in a higher resolution?

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

I donโ€™t have one sorry, this was from Reddit. Iโ€™ve also looked for a higher res version online and couldnโ€™t find one.

[โ€“] synicalx@lemm.ee 29 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Why not just ctrl-f the PDF?

[โ€“] antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does the PDF contain all the products of all the brands associated with each top-level US company (owner)? If not, the LLM can help finding the connections between product/brand and US-based owner, given that it was trained on data about those relations. However, if the relevant training data is lacking or faulty, it could also sometimes result in wrong answers... (but with confidence!)

[โ€“] synicalx@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Sounds like the PDF, assuming itโ€™s accurate and current, is more reliable.

[โ€“] colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Itโ€™s essentially an image with logos of brands and no text - OP posted it above

Edit: it appears I was wrong, there is also a text only PDF so your point is valid

[โ€“] jim_v@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Because AI.

[โ€“] OrlandoDoom@feddit.uk 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

With AI, it might randomly forget stuff that is on the list, and it might randomly add to the list. Personally I wouldn't rely on it

[โ€“] drmoose@lemmy.world -5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

that's an unlikely fear. Retrieval-augmented generation is pretty good these these days especially for simple prompts like this.

[โ€“] OrlandoDoom@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm a developer and use it for coding basic things, or to get a quick handle on new libraries that I know I'm only going to use for one project then never use again. GPT makes things up constantly, it just hallucinates methods all the time, I'll tell it that the the method doesn't exist, and like two messages later it'll appear again. It's saved time in some ways but when it messes up it just adds to development time, sometimes I just have to go back to the old methods of actually reading documentation and looking at stack overflow.

I've tried Gemini but it's just not very good at coding.

[โ€“] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

it subtly renamed a method for me the other day with a synonym.

[โ€“] bearboiblake@pawb.social 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not at all unlikely, it's almost entirely guaranteed. The AI can and will make shit up.

[โ€“] drmoose@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I develop some RAG applications and nah - it's quite reliable

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

LLM can hallucinate, but agree with you that RAG accuracy can be made reliable enough - by refining prompts, adjusting temperature, improving data structure etc. Tolerance for potential errors depends on the use case of course, but for something like this I wasnโ€™t too worried. Also this is a very simple PoC use case, just using the chat box of a free LLM. Making your own RAG using this would improve accuracy significantly. I know you know this as you also develop RAG applications, but others less familiar may not.

[โ€“] bearboiblake@pawb.social 3 points 1 week ago

dude if you think for 10 seconds that sending chatgpt a pdf and giving it instructions that it won't make shit up i've got an exciting business opportunity for you to invest in

[โ€“] Symphonic@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's pretty neat! While I see the concern of not using AI for everything. These projects are good for practice and provide motivation. This in turn gives a sense of achievement and maybe lead to bigger things. That to me makes this worth it. Great job.

[โ€“] Mobster@feddit.uk 1 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you

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