I think you can sue for almost anything. Whether you can win or not is a different question.
you wouldn’t win. All they have to do is point to the last step of the cooking instructions which says “5: Enjoy!” and claim you didn’t follow the directions.
Well, I think Pai has answered the question, and the answer to the question presented by the OP is “Yes”.
However, the way the OP’s question is framed may not be what the OP was really after, and that question may be whether he could be successful in this endeavor. Additionally, his stipulation of “looking as good as on the box cover” is quite subjective, and (IMHO) cannot be quantified in any objective way. More information for a suit would be needed here if there were any hope of being successful.
Frankly, I don’t think he’d get very far. For many years advertising has been focused on making food look succulent and edible. Look at the McDonalds/Burger King/etc commercials. You think what you’re seeing on the tube is what you’re gonna get? It looks pretty good in the commercials, but when have you ever unwrapped that double stack and said to yourself, “ahh yeah, now that’s a goddamned good-looking burger”. Do you even care?
I do like BlinkingDuck’s question about the number of toppings on the frozen pizza vs. what the packaging shows. Yet, I think that market forces would take care of that. Burn me once, I’ll not spend one effin’ red cent on your crap pizza. Certainly you could sue them (and if you had a group of people and one extremely bored lawyer you could do a class-action thing), but it doesn’t make financial sense. It’s better to vote with your wallet and hope they fall out of the market.
… and that’s perhaps the best way to approach this dilemma. Don’t buy their crap.
Well, I think Pai has answered the question, and the answer to the question presented by the OP is “Yes”.
However, the way the OP’s question is framed may not be what the OP was really after, and that question may be whether he could be successful in this endeavor. Additionally, his stipulation of “looking as good as on the box cover” is quite subjective, and (IMHO) cannot be quantified in any objective way. More information for a suit would be needed here if there were any hope of being successful.
Frankly, I don’t think he’d get very far. For many years advertising has been focused on making food look succulent and edible. Look at the McDonalds/Burger King/etc commercials. You think what you’re seeing on the tube is what you’re gonna get? It looks pretty good in the commercials, but when have you ever unwrapped that double stack and said to yourself, “ahh yeah, now that’s a goddamned good-looking burger”. Do you even care?
I do like BlinkingDuck’s question about the number of toppings on the frozen pizza vs. what the packaging shows. Yet, I think that market forces would take care of that. Burn me once, I’ll not spend one effin’ red cent on your crap pizza. Certainly you could sue them (and if you had a group of people and one extremely bored lawyer you could do a class-action thing), but it doesn’t make financial sense. It’s better to vote with your wallet and hope they fall out of the market.
… and that’s perhaps the best way to approach this dilemma. Don’t buy their crap.
well, I felt the thread had progressed enough that a bit of humor wasn’t out of place (I was paraphrasing a joke I heard from some stand-up comic years ago.)
good example.
not personally. but in this example, I’d think any suit brought by a customer could be defended by the fact that no “reasonable person” could expect their burger/burrito/whatever to look like the advertising copy given how quickly they have to be handled and packed- especially “to go.”
No, he’s saying that it’s very clear that they artificially enlarge the size of the container so they can claim settling is the reason the container isn’t full. In a perfect world, not using a container size that fit the contents would be false advertizing.
Properly packaged food shouldn’t settle so much that, say, you get half a box of cereal.
Here’s my theory on that then. I’d be willing to bet that some cereals will settle more then others. For example. Something like Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies will probably settle during transport more then Cheerios or Cookie Crisp.
Now, they could, for example, fill the bags, find a way to settle them (a vibrator perhaps) and then fill them the rest of the way) but this would cause them to be much more expensive since they have twice as much product inside the box. Also since they have less room to move inside the box might cause them to crumble more during transport. This is why a bag of potato chips is mostly filled with air, to protect the chips during transport.
The other option you suggested, to use a smaller box for those cereals I’m not sure would work either. I think if that happened, people would stick to the brands in the regular sized boxes, even if they were only half full. The boxes would ‘look’ funny, they would be hard to hold and pour and the consumer would feel like they were getting less for their money. All things that the manufacturers test for in focus groups long before the products hit the shelves.
Although, now I’m a bit curious if the food or the packaging costs more. If the packaging is a significant force in the cost of the cereal, and having a box (and bag) that uses, say 30 or 40% less material could get it on the shelf for 50¢ less, consumers might go for it. Also, now that I think about it, I suppose the box wouldn’t have to be half the height (I was thinking about that picture) just ‘smaller’ overall.
But, again, people see a smaller box, for the same price and they’re going to think they’re getting ripped off. I don’t think most people would even notice that it has the same amount of product unless the cereal companies started running some campaigns to let the consumers know about that…and why spend millions of dollars on that when they could just keep things they way they are?
For years I’ve wondered if someone sued or threatened to sue Taco Bell in the past. Years ago they would show their tacos with nice large helpings of cheese on them. But then, at least in our area the amount of cheese you got on your taco kept dropping. It got so bad it would literally often be only a few slivers of grated cheese. Then after awhile I noticed two things. The amount of cheese actually went back up to something decent (at least compared to the low it had become) AND their commercials actually showed roughly the amount of cheese you actually got.
Not sure if it was lawsuit related or just good ole fashion consumer bitching or random chance or my bad memory for that matter.
I would challenge the assertion that they filled it all the way up to begin with.
Most consumers don’t look at the box and say, “Oh, that’s 14.5 oz.” They look at how big the box is. (I look at the weight for price comparisons with other products, but not to figure out how much I need to buy.) Sure, I expect *some *settling, but I could show you a dozen products with packages (besides breakfast cereal) on the shelves right now that are about half full, including tortilla chips, pretzels, potato chips. I’ve seen something similar with some candy bars. Open a Tootsie Roll sometime–there’s lots of extra space on that little cardboard tray, and a Tootsie Roll doesn’t settle very much ;).
BTW, with regard to the OP, you might be successful in suing for what you paid for the product, in which case you would be better off just returning the unused portion for a refund (and based on your description, I would expect the unused portion to be 100%) or write a complaint to the manufacturer who would either refund your money or give you a shitload of coupons (for more food that isn’t as good as it portrait suggests).
The issue with such a lawsuit is that you wouldn’t be able to demonstrate damages beyond the cost of the product. Now, if you found a rat’s head in your chicken pot pie you would have a gold mine. 
It’s odd you would specifically mention tortilla chips, pretzels and potato chips. In my above post I specifically said
You’ll notice if you take one of those chip bags, you almost can’t break the chips if you try without popping the bag first. I think you have to give the manufacturer a pass on that one.
Why do you think this? If someone cares that the package is larger than it needs to be, the simple solution for them is to pay attention to the weight of the product, which is clearly printed on the box, not the volume of the box. It is a fairly simple concept. The product is sold by weight, not volume. You wouldn’t want them to sell by volume anyway.
I remember this a little differently:
The story I heard was that this was a student’s project, and the student found an average or only 2 cherries per pie. When they complained to McDonalds, the company increased the number of cherries to something more reasonable.
If this happened today, I’d bet that one could win a class-action lawsuit against McDonalds for deceptive advertising.
Manufacturers do it because it works. There is a difference between smart consumers and most consumers.
And the thing you have to remember is that “most consumers” will almost always be the driving force behind any marketing decision that gets made.
Sure, they could put the cereal in a smaller box and try to convince people that it’s the same amount or they could put twice as much in a bigger box and try to convince people that they’re getting the same value, but why bother when “most consumers” don’t really think about it.
Much of this “deceptive” advertising is “puffing” and that is allowed. For example, a product can claim it’s the best tasting chocolate ants. That is completely subjective and an extreme example of puffing. If the food item on the wrapper looks bigger than it really is, that is puffing also. 
If you were to pour a bowl of cereal out of that bag, I doubt you’d get a bowl with cereal in it that is as closely and efficiently packed as the flakes in the bag. I’d be curious to take that bag, mark the current fill level, pour out the entire bag and then pour it all back in again…I strongly suspect that the bag would appear to be more full, even though it would contain the exact same amount of cereal. Shaking the bag, even gently, for some amount of time would probably settle it back to the level in the picture.
In pharmaceutical manufacturing, there is a concept called bulk density and tapped density. Cereal is probably similar; the size of the bag is chosen for the bulk density at the time of packaging (plus air to protect the contents, perhaps?) and by the time the consumer receives it, it has settled to something nearing it’s tapped density.
I don’t currently have any cereal in the house, but I’d be tempted to try this! Grade-school science project on mass and volume? 
I guarantee you, once you got the company into court they’d simply bring in their professional chef from the test kitchen who would spend three times the suggested prep time, use real butter instead of the cheap-ass margarine I use, whole milk instead of skim, ground sirloin instead of hamburger and end up with something that looked like it came out of a five star restaurant.
I’m thinking of that baby food story - where illiterate users assumed that the label showed the contents, like all other kinds of food. Sales were poor, because they would not buy baby food in containers which showed a picture of a baby on them.
Is it a myth?
Snopes breaks it down for you.