I AM ALL FOR THIS!
Yesterday, I was forced to sit next to a guy who would give Jabba the Hut some competition in the Obesity department. He overflowed the seat, and forced me to sit squeezed into the corner of my seat. I say, let him pay for the privilege of inconveniencing me!
As soon as i saw the thread title, i knew what this would be about. It’s grown into an epidemic among the manufacturers of food and other household products, and it really pisses me off. As something of a snack food fiend, i first noticed it in Utz potato chips (as mentioned by Neidhart above), and in Ghirardelli chocolate squares, which dropped over an ounce per packet overnight.
The Consumerist website refers to this phenomenon as the Grocery Shrink Ray, and you can find some entries about it here. The Consumerist’s Ben Popken went on NPR recently to talk about the issue, and you can find a transcript of the interview here.
In regards to food desizing, I’d actually argue that it’s a good thing given the rise of obesity. Smaller portions is less food eaten.
You can read Usenet newsgroups using dejanews.com. I don’t even have any idea if my ISP offers Usenet service anymore, but I haven’t looked because dejanews covers it for me.
It translates to 18.316 litres. That’s not even an even size! :smack:
I don’t have a problem controlling my portion sizes. It comes off as dishonest, or misleading for manufacturers to pull that kind of tactic.
Although if the gallons are imperial, not US, then it’s pretty close to an even 22 litres. Could that be relevant somehow?
It’s the things you need for recipes that this sucks the most for. Like was said, you have to buy two now and have a ton of leftover.
One thing that a company tried and had to change was shredded cheese labeling. Half a pound of shredded cheese is 2 cups and they always state that on the package. They decided to state the new 6 oz. weight size was 2 cups. They got caught at their shenanigans, and went back to 8 oz weight is 2 cups shredded cheese.
I’m a small guy, so I do get this feeling sometimes. But then I remember that I’m a different type of social pariah (a smoker) and I feel a kind of solidarity.
Several years ago, I used to tell overweight people who complained about smoking “be careful, you guys are next on the hit list.” At the time I said this, I was joking.
People should be able to determine their own portion sizes. And it’s not like this strategy is the result of greater concern over the issue of obesity. It’s nothing more than trying to sneak a price rise past consumers without them realizing it.
Not only that, but because they reduce the size of the packaging rather than increase the price, they actually get away with price increases that are greater than what they would otherwise be able to pull off. For example, the reduction in Utz chips from 5.5oz to 4.25 oz is a price increase (per oz) of almost 30 percent. If they simply increased the price, they probably couldn’t have increased it by that much and still maintained sales.
The Grocery Shrink Ray is a great thing for companies, and i understand why they do it. It allows them to get more out of oblivious consumers without the consumers realizing that prices are dramatically increasing. But i’m not going to enable them, and i’m going to stop buying products where this happens.
Just eat more containers.
True. Since I moved to St. Louis, I’ve yet to find a grocery store which will offer me the choice of quality or cheap. I only get cheap. I sincerely miss (believe it or not) King Soopers.
I got a prompt reply:
So all of a sudden, we can tint our 5 gallon buckets, and it takes, apparently, up to 20oz of tint. Therefore those of us who just want white are out of luck, whereas those who want color get more for the money. Is that how it works??
Just for giggles, I looked for other brands that sell 5-gallon buckets - one of the more expensive ones claims to hold 630 oz rather than 5 gallons, since it is, in fact, 10 ounces short. So I, as a consumer who only needs white paint am subsidizing those who want colors, right? Sucks to be me, I guess.
Just an FYI on restaurants - when I worked for KFC in 1982, they were doing that. They’d put out new little cole slaw/mashed potato containers that held just a tad less than the previous. AND they’d raise the price a few cents.
I once cancelled my service with a DSL provider because of this and even spelled out the word “Usenet” so the clueless customer service rep who had never heard of the newsgroups would get it right.
I ended up going back to that ISP a year later and not only were the newsgroups back, but they had changed from their shitty old server to nice Giganews accounts for all of their members!
Don’t be afraid to cancel your service, and don’t be afraid to be the squeaky wheel. Enough squeaky wheels can make for a car so loud that the owner has to end up fixing it.
Damn, where you been? 
Google bought Dejanews out seven and a half years ago! Also, I don’t know what KneadToKnow uses the newsgroups for, but if it’s binaries, Google Groups ain’t gonna help with that.
Sometimes I get the feeling that companies are testing the waters, trying to see how blatant they can be about taking advantage of people’s stupidity.
A few days ago, I ordered some LED lamps directly from a Chinese factory that does business on eBay. They had five different prices for the exact same thing, a two dollar range on a $10 product! If you were just looking at the results of a regular search rather than their eBay store, you might not notice.
The lowest priced ones turned out to be the only ones that weren’t being sold in American currency. They were selling them in Australian dollars, even though they listed shipping options for the U.S., but not Australia! WTF? Since Paypal converts currencies automatically, I ended up doing just that - placing an order from China to the U.S., and conducting the transaction entirely in AUD… and saving a buck for my efforts! :smack:
Yeah, I’m mostly about the … um … binaries.
That makes sense if what you are talking about is those oversized candy bars gas stations sell as “single servings” and Big Gulp sodas or the aforementioned yogurt - but staples like sugar, flour, cans of pumpkin (cans of much of anything), and the ever shrinking cereal box aren’t generally used straight from the package as a single serving.
Heh. Then I’d recommend NewsHosting. I’ve been using them since 2003 or so with zero complaints and the speed maxes out my connection, even at peak times. Their unlimited service is $5 cheaper a month than Giganews. Now, the retention on that plan is 80 days compared to Giganews’s 180 days, but I don’t think the extra retention is worth a 25% higher price. YMMV.