These Are the ‘Most Loved’ Brands in the Country, According to a New Survey

Analysts are always looking for different ways to evaluate brands. The results are lists like which restaurant chains have the most “loyal” diners or which grocery store brands offer the highest level of “customer satisfaction.” Along those lines, the research company Morning Consult has just released its list of “Most Loved Brands in America” with its own unique methodology and, hopefully, some new insight into American consumers.

For our Food & Wine purposes, five food brands made the top 25 list. (Sadly, no wine brands did.) However, before we dive into that list, it might be helpful to know what “loved” actually means. Morning Consult explains, “Between 1,000 and 56,000 adults rated each of the over 1,900 companies from January through February 2019.” These online surveys specifically looked at four factors: Whether customers had a favorable opinion of the brands, whether they trusted the brand “to do the right thing,” whether they thought the brand had a “positive impact on their local community,” and whether they would promote the brand to others. To what extent this equals “love” is certainly up for debate (you can love your spouse even if they don’t have a positive impact on the local community), but now you have a better sense of what was being considered.

With that in mind, the top food brand on the list, ranking #7, was Hershey’s. Cheerios finished 10th, Subway finished 19th, Dairy Queen finished 22nd, and Chick-fil-A finished 24th.

Frankly, of all the brands in the country, these five seem like a random splattering. Certainly, Hershey’s, Cheerios, and maybe even Dairy Queen conjure up some childhood nostalgia that may boost their score, but why they prevailed over other brands feels like a bit of a mystery. And speaking of mysteries, it’s not surprising that Chick-fil-A, which is known to have a cult following (despite its controversies), made the list, but how on earth did Subway, a brand that’s been going through some tough times recently, finish above them?

Regardless, America is a large and diverse place, and in the end, I guess you have to take Morning Consult’s findings for what they are, even if it doesn’t quite fit your perspective. For the curious, here’s the list of the entire top 25…

1. Amazon

2. Google

3. Netflix

4. UPS

5. Home Depot

6. USPS

7. Hershey’s

8. FedEx

9. Dollar Tree

10. Cheerios

11. Lowes

12. Samsung

13. Tide

14. YouTube

15. Target

16. Weather Channel

17. Dove

18. Walmart

19. Subway

20. Walgreens

21. PayPal

22. Dairy Queen

23. Walt Disney

24. Chick-fil-A

25. Colgate