"Content downsizing" (prices same or higher) of grocery products

[UTUSN]

This was in a veterans' newsletter. There are some even more draconian items in it about Social Security pay-outs exceeding contributions by 2011 instead of previous projections of 2017 and legislation updates.


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http://post_119_gulfport_ms.tripod.com/rao1.html

Food Packaging:

It’s a trick worthy of a magician: Make a supermarket product look the same but actually contain less. That’s the kind of move that many companies are using to shrink popular grocery items like mayonnaise, ice cream, peanut butter and toilet paper, while keeping the price and packaging the same. The result: Consumers are getting less for their money. Approximately one-third of items at the grocery store have lost content since 2007, according to the Nielsen Co., which tracks market trends. Meanwhile, consumers last year saw food prices rise some 7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Companies argue that, like consumers, they’re also trying to stretch a dollar; their manufacturing costs have gone up, explains food marketing expert Phil Lempert, editor of http://www.SupermarketGuru.com Factors like hurricanes, record cold weather and the rising cost of energy have driven up the cost of producing packaged goods. "When you're a food manufacturer, you either raise your prices even further or you take a look at putting less in the package and keep the price the same," Lempert says. Still, he agrees that "some packages are blatant rip-offs." For instance, he notes that coffee packages that may appear to be the same size "can have anything from 7.5 to 16 oz. of coffee, depending on the brand, and that's just not fair."

Content downsizing cuts across the grocery spectrum, influencing private labels and even organic products. "You especially see this with products like chips-organic or otherwise-especially when they're packed in airtight bags," says financial writer Jill Westfall, a contributor to Money magazine. Part of the problem, says longtime consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky, is that most consumers "aren't net weight-conscious, they're price-conscious, and the manufacturers know that. That's how manufacturers take advantage of customers. They do these tricks." Dworsky, a lawyer who's worked in the field of consumer protection for 31 years, monitors consumer news on his website http://www.ConsumerWorld.org and recently started a blog, http://www.Mouseprint.org that is focused on the fine print of advertising. "Manufacturers know that customers know the size (of a product) in the relative sense-when you pick up a large tub of margarine, which used to be 3 pounds but is now 45 oz.," you can't really feel the missing three ounces, he says. Some examples of downsizing are:

* Dial Corp. shaved its soap bars from 4.5 oz. to 4 oz.;
* The biggest jar of Hellmann's mayonnaise dropped from 32 oz. to 30 oz.
* A tub of Breyer's ice cream shrank from 56 oz. to 48.
* Skippy peanut butter now has an indentation at the bottom of its jars, causing the contents to drop from 18 oz. to 16.3 oz, even though the jar looks the same.
* Scott's toilet tissue kept number of sheets (1,000) but reduced the length of the sheets from 4 inches to 3.7 inches, making the roll 300 inches shorter.
* Kleenex tissues shrunk in width by two-tenths of an inch, which adds up to more than 300 square inches less per box.
* StarKist's Chunk Light tuna went from 6 oz. to 5.
* Froot Loops went from 19.7 oz to 17 oz.
* Apple Jacks went from 17 oz to 15 oz.
* Hershey's chocolate bar went from 8 oz to 6.8 oz.
* Country Crock spread from 3 lb to 2 lb 13 oz.
* Tropicana orange juice from 96 oz to 89 oz.
* Friskies cat food from 6 oz to 5.5 oz.
* Chips Ahoy cookies from 16 oz to 15.225 oz

Dworsky says that if shoppers spot a leading brand shortchanging them and it’s a recent development, they should check the other competing brands. Chances are, those brands haven’t changed yet and shoppers will get more for their money. He also encourages consumers to voice their feelings to manufacturers of their favorite brands. “Send a letter and let them know you’re not happy about them changing the product. Maybe at least they’ll send you some discount coupons.” He also recommends that consumers “shop by unit”—that is, check the price per unit posted on the shelf to see what they’re really paying for. Ultimately, though, once the top brands resize their packaging or contents, the other brands—even the private-label store brands—likely will change as well. And nothing seems safe. Even dog food has downsized. At the rate packages are being downsized stand by for the 11 egg cartoon.

(Source: AARP Geoff Williams article 17 Feb 09 )

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[jwirr]

1. My addiction is licorice and they have definitely downsized that. nt

[Orrex]

2. I saw a news program about this a few years ago, possibly pre-2007

I can't remember if it was 20/20 or not, but it was very good, though infuriating.

When confronted with some particular content-reduced product, the spokesperson for the manufacturer had the nerve to say they had polled consumers and learned that people were looking for smaller portion-sizes.

No shit. But smaller portion size doesn't have anything to do with the overall contents of the container.


Corporate greed never runs short of ways to fuck the consumer.

[itsrobert]

3. My wife bought a jug of Lactaid Milk thinking it was a gallon

and it was about 3/4 Gallon. It should be illegal not to sell milk by the 1/4, 1/2, or Full Gallon. The wife seems to fall for these tricks all the time. Somehow, I can do the math in my head pretty quickly and I get a little argument with her that the bargain she got, was not a bargain at all.

[tangent90]

4. Food for our 3 adopted dogs comes in 50 pound bags that mysteriously became 40

pounds a few weeks ago. But the price is still the same, I guess I'm supposed to be happy about that.

Assholes.
:grr:

[DJ13]

5. Grocers, name-brand food producers at odds over prices

Supermarkets complain that giant food manufacturers' wholesale prices have risen even as commodity costs have fallen.
By Jerry Hirsch
March 2, 2009
There's a tug-of-war underway over food prices between the nation's supermarkets and giant food manufacturers including Nestle, Unilever and Kellogg.

The nation's big grocery chains contend that food manufacturers have raised prices too fast and too far, considering large drops in prices for fuel, corn, wheat and other important commodities in recent months.

The food companies disagree and say they are still coping with many rising prices themselves.

At issue are surging wholesale prices for products such as Nestle's Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, which rose 14% last April. Since then, the price that farmers get for milk -- the main ingredient -- has dropped 36%.

Kraft raised the wholesale price of a box of its staple macaroni and cheese an average of 9% in the last year, according to several supermarket chains, despite 38% to 68% plunges in cheese and wheat prices. These increases factor in the growing practice by the manufacturers of shrinking the weight of the contents without reducing wholesale prices.

The grocers are fuming. One large grocery company operating in Southern California has seen the wholesale price for a carton of Kellogg's Corn Pops rise about 17% since June -- despite a 52% plunge in corn prices from their peak that month.

More-
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-foodprices2-2009mar02,0,6375283.story
Grocers, name-brand food producers at odds over prices - Los Angeles Times

[malaise]

6. I used to buy the big bag of cat food and fill two huge containers

The price has gone up but it now fills one and a half.

[walkaway]

7. I just made some Mid East couscous....

and I realized that in order to make the entire box you used to have to add 2 cups water....now 1 1/4 cups is all you need. Same size box too.

[TheMickster]

8. It's not just grocery items

It seems like the hambuger patties that burger king and mcdonalds use for their burgers have shrunk. It might be just me, but I don't think so.

[Kip Humphrey]

9. A common ploy to mask inflation... Expect a wave of inflation next.

Food and some hard goods often lead waves of inflation that ripple through the economy because they are highly perishable or have a short shelf life.

[customerserviceguy]

10. This is nothing new

I remember this happening during the higher inflation periods of the last four decades. Then, they bring out the "Jumbo Economy Size", and it starts all over again.

[global1]

11. Proctor & Gamble Took Their Tide Liquid And Called It Ultra 2X .....

and is now selling smaller containers for twice the price.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. They just noticed this? Back in the 60s we...

were pissed about shrinking candy bars in the original wrappers and lighter cereal boxes.

I think it was during the Carter years that the unit pricing gizmos in stores was started brcause of the insane amounts (37.6 oz?) on the containers designed to confuse value shoppers.

Coffee has been less than a pound for many years and and ice cream has been 48 oz for a couple. Big fights over those at first.

Yes prices do go up when costs go up-- the actual food in processed food is generally a small percentage of the total cost. There's the plant, distibution, capital and transaction costs... Interesting thoughts about where high food prices might go if all those people on the farm or in the plants were unionized and their wages doubled over the next couple of years. No, I'm not a union basher and I know of horrible conditions and cheap labor in meatpacking plants that must be dealt with, but it would still cost.