I bought some Dannon Oikos because it was on sale, every cup is at least 25% empty inside. Chip companies are notorious for this, to the point some started adding see through windows or plastic bags. I mean oh sure the weight of the product is clearly labeled, but I certainly have no clue how much 5.3 ounces of greek yogurt takes up in volume(well I do now).
But see now I know and will keep it in mind in the future, so the trick only works once per customer. Which makes me wonder is this scam even worth it? I mean packaging costs money too, just to trick first time buyers?:dubious:
Most of the time when I shop for things like yogurt I’ll look at the “price per unit” on the price display, which will give you the price per ounce or whatever unit of measurement is appropriate.
I don’t know it’s that companies are deliberately making the packaging too large. Rather, you used to be able to buy a larger volume, but now they’re just putting less in the same old packages, hoping consumers don’t notice. It’s a stealth method of raising prices.
I remember when yogurt came in 8 oz cups. Then they were sold in 6 oz cups labeled “20% fewer calories” - well duh - also 20% less volume.
Then there’s what used to be 16 oz cans of pumpkin that are now 14.5 oz - really screws up my pie recipe. Sneaky bastards.
In the case of yogurt, they’re even marketing it as a feature, not a bug. “Now with room for your mix-in’s!” was the blazon on yogurt (I think it was Danon) for a few months that made me see red…and not just for the inappropriate apostrophe. They didn’t make room by making the container larger, they made room by removing 2 ounces of yogurt. Assholes.
See also: half gallon ice cream isn’t a half gallon anymore, but the top is the same size, more or less - but it’s a trapezoid (excuse me, a “Freezer Space Saving Container!!!” with a much smaller bottom, and slanted sides instead of straight. And if the curved bottom of my peanut butter jar gets any curvier, I’m gonna start wearing it as a hat. They’re getting really sneaky with making packages smaller in misleading ways.
Alas, I cannot now remember sufficient details, but a year or two ago, I bought some product which came in a fairly small, opaque, plastic jar. I discovered that the jar had a false bottom, and contained only about half the volume that the outside dimensions would suggest.
I’m guessing people don’t remember, or they just don’t notice. I notice the amount of food in the things I buy often. But for something I don’t buy as often, I might not remember how much was in the package, so they could change the amount in there and I wouldn’t notice. Or I buy the Dannon Oikos, notice that the cup is 25% empty, swear I will never buy it again, but after 9 months pass I don’t remember which yogurt it was I liked and which I didn’t like. Or I remember being upset about the Dannon Oikos yogurt but not quite remembering why, and it looks really good on the shelf, so maybe whatever I was upset about months ago wasn’t really that bad.
Bob Blaylock’s story is a good example. Since he doesn’t remember what product it was, it’s possible he might buy it again, and not remember that it’s the same product until he gets it home and discovers the false bottom.
Making packaging seem larger than it is is an old trick. Cereal makers started making the boxes taller, wider and thinner in the 1950s. Like all such things, It’s cyclical, but we are in an era when nearly every standard food package has been downsized in weight and content while being modified to take up the same amount of shelf space (or more, because the one thing the conglomerates will give up when it’s pried from their cold dead fingers is shelf space).
The only immediate solution is to look at standardized price/weight info and ignore everything else, even the many cues intended to make you think you’re getting the same/better deal. You can’t win by looking at what the manufacturer chooses to show or tell you. You have to look at the base numbers, which many better grocery stores provide in increasingly large type.
The bit about making the packaging smaller for the same price drives me batty-- Just raise the prices honestly, I understand that that’s sometimes necessary, but changing the size screws up so many things. You have to adjust all of your recipes, and sometimes (like with the ice cream) the “space saver” ends up taking up more space.
I was shopping for toilet paper. I tried using the unit price tags on the store shelf and some of them were cents per sheet, others were cents per hundred square feet, and there was even one that said “per each.” And even if they all stuck to cents per hundred square feet, that isn’t a very helpful measure because while it is technically true that I get more TP if one brand is an eighth of an inch wider than the other, I will probably use the same number of sheets. Unless one is flimsier than the other…
And speaking of toilet paper, what is it with the narrow sheets? I swear they are getting more narrow every time I buy a package.
But if I make any points about the level grocery product sellers go to in order to increase sales through outright deception and consumer manipulation, Lab D. is going to go all ballistic again. (Because if he’s not a shill for the conglomerates, he’s in that sad category that believes only stupid and gullible people can be so manipulated. Too bad about 75 years of research are against his belief.)
As to that level - even relatively well-informed people have no effing idea of the scope, scale and intensity of the effort. None.
Yes, with bulk items like chips, crackers, cereal, etc, they are processed and the bags are filled by machine, so they enter the bags in a loose fill and stack in a very inefficient packing arrangement. Then, during handling, shipping, whatnot, vibrations shake the pieces and they align better, and they pack into a smaller volume. The package has to account for the loose fill stage. The alternative would require extensive vibration of the package during filling and a lenthy “settle” process and refill to reach the stated weight.
Plus, with a loose bag (as opposed to bag in a box like cereal), the extra air does provide cushion to casual handling. Instead of breaking every chip when you toss the bags around between shelfs, counters, carts, scanners, car seats, etc, you only break most of them.
Toilet paper is notoriously bad for having inconsistent manners of determining the “unit price”. Price per roll, per sheet, per package, per square in, per 100 sq ft. “Double rolls” that are ~ 1.7 times a regular roll. I have pulled out a calculator and computed the comparisons manually from the numbers on the packaging, but even then it’s not a simple comparison, because product quality affects usage.
A thick, soft (absorbent) sheet is more comfortable and pleasant to use than a thin, stiff cheap sheet, even accounting for using 4 squares of Charmin vs 12 squares of cheapo per wipe. Or whatever. So there is a balance between tissue quality and cost per unit whatever that has to be accounted for as well.
I haven’t noticed this for home toilet paper, but commercial versions definitely have some weird ideas on dispensing and paper sizing. They seem to get narrower and narrower. I get that you want to efficiently pack length so more can be stored on the holder, and the holder can be packed into a narrow stall without completely obstructing the user, and last longer between refills. Still, some of these are getting ridiculous. Just means have to use more length to zigzag and cover the same area.
In the “soft enough to not remove flesh but strong enough to not separate” category, there are still several brands with differing costs. And sometimes even one brand will offer different packaging that changes the unit cost. Is the big pack of 16 actually less per sheet, or did they special discount the pack of 12?
Ice cream was sneaky about it.
Step 1: Regular flavors are 1/2 gallon. Special or seasonal flavors are 1.75 quarts.
Step 2: Make all flavors 1.75 quarts for a while.
Step 3: Make regular flavors 1.75 qt, and special ones 1.5 qt.
Step 4: All flavors now 1.5 qt.
It’s not like that misleads most of us. We’re aware that the price hasn’t changed and the packaging is smaller. It’s not like we have a choice, though, if we want to buy ice cream. It’s not like Dreyer’s starts the packaging change but Breyer’s doesn’t, so you can buy Breyer’s and protest Dreyer’s. They all do it together, so there’s no option. The only option is to stop buying ice cream.