Spent some time making a roast chicken dinner and the gravy made partly with this was awful. Any suggestions please? In the UK I always used a bio stock cube. The roast tatties were poor too. Must have been a waxy variety. Are these actually stock cubes?
Hard to find good roasting potatoes here. Our favorite (apart from home grown) is Caesar.
Bouillon does serve for stock, but often is feeble and more akin to dishwater. We tend to augment it.
Absolutely
Much better not to use a stock cube.
Boil up outer leaves of greens / sprouts / kale / cabbage + parsnip skin and tops and tails and carrot skin and tops and tails, potato skin, celery, etc. Then let simmer to make stock while the chicken is cooking.
Once chicken has roasted remove from the pan. drain off the excess fat. Put pan back on hob, pour into pan a generous slug of red wine and stir it round as it comes to the boil so that all the nice roasty bits are gathered up in the wine. Add a good slug of the cabbage stock and mix in. Add whatever takes your fancy in the way of herbs and spices - bay leaf, garlic clove, ginger root, salt pepper, cumin, oregano, thyme, you name it, you can add it. Allow to reduce down. If necessary put through sieve. Make up a small amount of arrowroot paste and mix thoroughly with the gravy bringing it back to the boil so it thickens slightly.
You will never use a stock cube ever again. 
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For chickenless households we roast some veg bits, like carrot tops, celery and onion, before deglazing, adding water loads and loads of herbs and some seasonings. The caramelisation of the veg gives it body.
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Perhaps not but I was very happy with the result with a little vinegar to deglaze plus stock cube I used in UK plus a little fat from the chicken plus roasted garlic cloves. I will try the method you advocate one of the days Sue.
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Round here supermarkets have Knorr and Maggi stock cubes - would they have more flavour?
We have a chicken most weekends and eventually it gets made into a litre or so of stock with the addition of celery, the tops of leeks and maybe a few jalopeno flakes or a dash of soy.
However, if I’ve also been making confit de canard (start another batch of six cuisses tomorrow) will add some of the jelly that’s left in the casserole below the fat, but used sparingly 'cos it’s very rich and a bit salty; rest gets preserved under duck fat or frozen.
If you want reasonable veg stock powder, try the local biocoop, who’ll probably sell it loose. Also most supermarkets sell fat free beef/chicken stock cubes and fond de veau all of which can be pimped.
I use the stock pots that are akin to a jelly, not brilliant but better than the hard to crumble cubes of any brand that are tasteless. There are small round pots of powder you add to water that thicken on the shelves too and I have used those in liquids just to give a bit of body. My suggestion would be to use the packets of different sauces that you see - Echalote, vin rouge, champignon etc, they are much better to put on a meal.
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Could I recommend Madeira - it seems to add better flavour.
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Maybe I should bring over Oxo cubes and sell them on the black to Brits. 
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Please don’t! You can actually get them here, and the is the disgusting equivalent for those who have no taste buds.
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Ouch! I’m not sure everyone shares your sentiments. 
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Bovril is better 
As a heathen with food, I just love bisto gravy granules on chips with a bit of worcs sauce or smoky BBQ sauce added à la poutine (sort of) The international shop in the city sells bisto here.
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I must be a heathen too. I have a good supply of Bisto & OXO. If I need more I know of a dealer that will smuggle some over the channel.
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It is the salt! I find that if I use anything like that then all I can taste is salt. Fond de veau is 15% which is insane. (Not so keen on ground on and boiled animal innards either, but at least that is flavour)
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I sometimes enjoy a mug of OXO beef or Chicken.
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Food flavouring ingredients have really changed in the last couple of years, to the point where the only way to make them enjoyable is to add salt and often some sugar too. Speaking as someone who doesn’t normally put salt on their food, even though I grew up surrounded by those who did. Government requirements have had a very negative impact.
My dad was an Oxo fan, got into it as a kid during the war and loved it on his mash.