Same Price, Shrinking Quantity.........

[Guest DuchessIvanaKizznhugg]

A recent study by Consumer Reports confirms that food manufacturers are actively taking price increases....via a somewhat less obvious way..........

 

http://i965.photobucket.com/albums/ae139/DuchessIvanaKizznhugg/transparency.jpg

 

Source

[+ deej]

They've been doing this for most of my lifetime.

 

A can of Swanson's chicken broth that used to be 16 oz. now clocks in at either 14 oz. or 14.5 oz. The thing that pisses me off is the impact on recipes if you don't know it's suddenly a different size.

 

Consider rice. The ratio is 2:1 liquid to uncooked rice. The old size cans of broth were *exactly* two cups of liquid, so it was perfect for one cup of rice. If you *know* about the size difference you can compensate, but most of the time you won't know until the cooking is done and the rice is a little firm.

 

A lot of published recipes were devised using commonly available package sizes. Change those sizes and the recipes are all off.

[Bart]

This phenomenon has been an aggressive campaign by food industry for years. The first came in liquids, the conversion to metric system helped soda mfgs move to liter bottles and add millions to bottom line while complaining that costs of changing the printing would have to be passed along to consumers.

Next came the cereal industry deceptively keeping the same size box but listing the oz's correctly the consumer did not realize the box was same size but held less. Then reduced the size of the box once they used up all the stock.

I next noticed in baking. The 5lb bag of flour and sugar, the standard size, became 4 lbs but the same price. Nestles Chocolate Chips use to be a 16 oz bag many years ago and now it is a 12 oz bag. They charge extra for the mini chips, same amount of chocolate!!

Corn growers get subsidies if they produce corn for ethynol but because so much was going for ethynol they could charge more to the cereal industry and claim shortage, reduce our mpg on vehicles causing us to use more gas. So we pay for the subsidy, higher cereal and more per gallon of gas due to less usage. Somebody has to be making money and corn production is going through the roof.

[Lookin]

As others have said, this has been going on for a long time. I first noticed it in the '70's when a 'pound' of coffee one day became 13 ounces in the same-size can. I think they're down to 11 ounces now.

 

The paper products folks have it down to a science. The number of paper towels on a roll will steadily decrease over time, until the roll is downright puny. Then they'll introduce their "New Giant Roll" at a new higher price. Of course the 'giant' roll gets them back to where they started, and the process can begin all over again.

 

I'm a big fan of Häagen-Dazs , although the price makes it only an occasional treat. When Dreyer's bought the brand a few years back, I figured they'd start raising the price right away and was surprised when they didn't. Then, when I let it sit at room temperature for twenty minutes and saw air bubbles that didn't used to be there, I realized their trick was to pump air into the product. There's no law against it and, since ice cream is sold by the fluid ounce rather than by weight, they could still call it a pint, or sixteen fluid ounces. It's just that they've figured out a way to sell air at ice cream prices. I notice in the article you quoted, they're now selling a fourteen fluid ounce size, so this will be their second 'price increase', without really raising the price.

 

Still, in my opinion, this is a lot more benign form of price increase than when manufacturers start cheapening the ingredients. That's what many food manufacturers do when they want more profits, but don't want to risk raising the sticker price. Breyer's, for example, used to make a big deal about their wholesome ingredients and used to have a commercial that showed a kid reading the simple label: milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla. Not any more. They've replaced vanilla with 'natural vanilla flavor', whatever the hell that is. They've also added 'natural tara gum' to give a creamy texture to the ice cream. Of course, that's what real cream is supposed to do, but I'm sure the tara gum lets them cut back on the expensive real stuff.

 

(What really gets my goat is when they pull this trick with staples, especially the stuff that kids eat. Try reading the ingredient list for macaroni and cheese some day, and tell me how much cheese you think junior is actually getting. I'm more and more convinced that a good part of our childhood obesity problem can be traced back to nutritionally empty calories. But that's another thread. http://www.maleescortreview.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif )

 

As your post shows, the whole point of these various subterfuges is to let manufacturers take regular 'hidden' price increases. If anyone were ever able to bring these price increases out into the open, I think we'd get a whole new picture of inflation.

[Guest DuchessIvanaKizznhugg]

.........if anyone were ever able to bring these price increases out into the open, i think we'd get a whole new picture of inflation.

 

Bingo!!

[leigh.bess.toad]

Good luck buying that half-gallon of ice cream. Unless you go to an ice cream shop where it's packed by hand you can't get it anymore. Hell it's down to 1-1/2 quarts now and heading south.

[seeker630]

Good luck buying that half-gallon of ice cream. Unless you go to an ice cream shop where it's packed by hand you can't get it anymore. Hell it's down to 1-1/2 quarts now and heading south.

I'm not sure if it's a full half-gallon, but I Blue Bunny has more in a container than most of the other brands. Fortunately, I don't have any in the freezer to check.

[+ Charlie]

A related development is when they started listing calories on prepared foods. They do it by the number of calories "per serving." So they simply keep something the same size, but increase the claimed number of servings. That dinner entree that looks like it has a reasonable number of calories turns out to be for two and a half people instead of one.

[seeker630]

A related development is when they started listing calories on prepared foods. They do it by the number of calories "per serving." So they simply keep something the same size, but increase the claimed number of servings. That dinner entree that looks like it has a reasonable number of calories turns out to be for two and a half people instead of one.

YES! Decades ago, Frito-Lay rolled out 'Lite' Fritos' (or something like that) claiming 1/3 the calories. But...when you read the fine print, they'd cut the 'serving size' in half (2 servings in one small bag), so the calories per gram/oz was only something like 25% less. Sneaky!

[leigh.bess.toad]

I'm not sure if it's a full half-gallon, but I Blue Bunny has more in a container than most of the other brands. Fortunately, I don't have any in the freezer to check.

 

Initially it obviously was half-gallon. Then it went to 1-3/4 quarts. Now we're at 1-1/2 quarts. Anybody want to bet against the 1-1/4 quart size is coming soon? At which point we will then go back to a half-gallon for more than double the price. I'm just glad these people don't control the Bureau of Standards and Technoogy or a quart would be shrinking too.

[KMEM]

lookin'-

 

While I don't disagree with the premise you propose I suggest that you would not be able to eat ice cream that was not "full" of air. It would taste awful. "Real" ice cream has at least 100% over run which is an amount of air whipped or beaten into it. That spreads the butter fat and flavors around in a very agreeable manner. Ice cream is defined by state law and in TN must be 10% butterfat or more. In Wisconsin I believe it must be substantially more. After all it is the dairy state.

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[Lookin]

Interesting info, KMEM. I saw an estimate that Häagen-Dazs' overrun was 25% - 30%, but that was two years ago. I do know that, a year or so after Dryer's bought it, I noticed it started to get spongy as it melted. It didn't use to.

 

Apparently Häagen-Dazs is coming out with a new label called 'Five'. The selling point is five simple ingredients, all real. Someone posted that the overrun was really high, in-line with the store brands. So they'll be making plenty of money on it, assuming enough folks like it.

 

Like I said earlier, I don't mind them cutting costs this way, as long as they don't start pulling out good ingredients and loading it with guar gum.

 

Hell, I may have to go back to makin' my own damn ice cream. http://www.maleescortreview.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif

 

http://images.travelpod.com/users/skahasharon/1.1281366065.anne-and-friends-making-ice-cream.jpg

[Guest greatness]

Oh my Lookin, I love making my own ice cream. I rarely buy ice cream. We can make it together. We can call it L&G.

[Guest Spanky]

Oh my Lookin, I love making my own ice cream. I rarely buy ice cream. We can make it together. We can call it L&G.

 

You need to get Raul in on that. He's the ice cream making king.

 

On the flip side of the same price/smaller product debate, keep in mind that clothing manufacturers are making everything bigger than in yesteryear in order to account for the increasing obesification of America.

[Guest greatness]

ok

 

We call it LGR then.. Hugs~~~

 

You need to get Raul in on that. He's the ice cream making king.

 

On the flip side of the same price/smaller product debate, keep in mind that clothing manufacturers are making everything bigger than in yesteryear in order to account for the increasing obesification of America.

[nate_sf]

Interesting info, KMEM. I saw an estimate that Häagen-Dazs' overrun was 25% - 30%, but that was two years ago. I do know that, a year or so after Dryer's bought it, I noticed it started to get spongy as it melted. It didn't use to.

 

Apparently Häagen-Dazs is coming out with a new label called 'Five'. The selling point is five simple ingredients, all real. Someone posted that the overrun was really high, in-line with the store brands. So they'll be making plenty of money on it, assuming enough folks like it.

 

The interesting thing to also look at with Haagen Dazs is the difference between the pre-Dreyers flavors (basic chocolate, vanilla, strawberry etc) and the post-Dreyers flashier flavors (Delce de Leche, etc). The fancy Dreyer's-era flavors have much lengthier, complex lists of ingredients compared to the original Haagen-Dazs flavors which are still very simple combinations along the lines of the new "Five" series. In fact, a lot of the old Haagen-Dazs flavors also have just five or six ingredients, compared to the chemistry-set mix of ingredients in the newer flavors.

 

I'm still a sucker for Haagen-Dazs original strawberry, even though ordinarily I'm not big on strawberry ice cream but theirs is one of a kind. And the "Five" brown sugar flavor is totally amazing.

[twinkboylover28]

I noticed the Bailey's Irish Cream fridge-pack shrunk from 5 minis to only 4 minis for the same price, with the same exact packaging.

[bobchitown]

When forced into a vending machine lunch, my snack of choice is the package of animal crackers that are actually not too bad for you. I noticed that the package now says "new and improved" - the only change I can see is that the package is about half the size of the old one!

 

And here I thought this thread was going to be about escorts inflating their assets!

[KMEM]

I ALWAYS enjoy escorts inflating their assets.

 

lookin'-

 

Actually I had not researched the "over run" question before I answered. I was going on historical information. I grew up in the soft serve/ice cream business and we always "thought" that soft serve should be about 50% over run (because it had less than 10% butterfat) and "real" ice cream should have about 100% over run because of much more butterfat. Frozen "ice cream mix" would be unpalatable ice cubes, without the air. I suppose I have not kept up with later versions of "premium" ice cream and their formulary. Of course, with a LOT of "other" ingredients, most any solids, the amount of air that could be incorporated will be decreased. 30% sounds a bit low but whatever works for them and their customers. Without knowing, I am thinking they are not "just" adding more air to the product; there are too many other ways to "cheapen" the result to include more and different stabilizers, cheaper ingredients, etc. Lessening the butterfat will do it also.

 

As a side note- when we "beat" real ice cream too long, because of the higher butterfat content, it would start to "produce" butter which was seen as small flakes of butter throughout. It did NOT enhance the flavor or so important pleasing to the tongue texture of the product.

 

I completely agree with the idea on this post that goods are getting smaller and for the same price. Anyone care to post about how the "giant size" is the basic size and they only get bigger from there (I am not talking about escorts).

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[bobchitown]

I ALWAYS enjoy escorts inflating their assets.

 

As a side note- when we "beat" real ice cream too long, because of the higher butterfat content, it would start to "produce" butter which was seen as small flakes of butter throughout. It did NOT enhance the flavor or so important pleasing to the tongue texture of the product.

 

KMEM

 

Isn't production of tasty "butter" a desired effect of beating... nevermind, too easy.