Here's Our Least Favorite Canned Corn Brand On The Shelves

Canned corn seems to be a simple item that should be the same in quality, regardless of the brand. It's corn, water, and salt in a metal can. How different could one brand be from another? The Takeout's Dani Zoeller tried out 12 canned corn brands and found a very big difference across the brands. Zoeller also found Green Giant to be the absolute best canned corn, while her least favorite was from Hanover.

Hanover took the bottom-most spot on our list because of what Zoeller called "an odd, unexpected flavor that I got that wasn't anything particularly enjoyable, but also very hard to pin down." Zoeller added that the Hanover canned corn "wasn't bitter or overly watery, it just tasted simply gross. It reminded me of the corn you might see used in animal feed." That flavor suggests another culprit besides corn in that can. However, a look at the ingredients list on the Hanover website shows just three basic ingredients: corn, water, and salt. 

So what caused the aftertaste? It wasn't the can, since Zoeller detected a metallic "can" taste in other brands on the list. There was something different in the least favorite corn pick, and it wasn't on the ingredients list.

The source of the flavor is unknown. However, there are possible reasons for the odd taste, and the source of that information is most surprising: the Code of Federal Regulations. This is a list of the regulations in use by the federal government of the United States, and includes in its definition of canned corn a list of "optional" ingredients. These include mint, yeast extract, carbohydrate sweeteners, MSG (no longer the villain it once was, but still), and something marked "flavoring." That "unexpected flavor" Zoeller detected could be any of the optional ingredients.

But, you might say, all ingredients must be listed on the label, right? That's not necessarily true. The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates food labels, states that manufacturers do not have to list "trace ingredients" that do not affect the food's function or the final product. So Hanover could legally have a trace ingredient in its mix that is not listed on the can, but has a flavor that is detectable as a background of aftertaste. Whatever those ingredients are, they helped land Hanover's canned corn at the bottom of our list of favorite canned corn.