What seems so strange to me is that fountain drinks are dirt cheap for establishments that serve them. Even taking into consideration the volume of soda they serve, how much could shorting their customers actually save them per quarter?
I am only brand loyal for a few specific things. If I think the price of something is astronomical, I can probably do without it. I don’t get very upset about shrinkflation.
But a few things are still crazy. It used to be a small bag of Doritos was pricey (fine… we understand how convenience stores work) but buying a bigger bag gave a significant discount. Now the big regular grocery bag is a medium at the same unit price as the small 7-11 bag, which I have seen priced at a crazy $2.79. You could buy the crazy huge bag at Costco, which is reasonable if you have a big family or don’t much care about your health. Or you could buy a dozen mixed small bags at the dollar store for a reasonable unit price.
What you can’t credibly do, IMHO, as a huge normal national grocery store chain with many different store brands, is claim you are just a little fish compared to Costco and dollar stores, and so pretend you don’t have the ability to get similar volume discounts and so can justify charging double.