About two years ago, I started seeing six-packs of Pepsi and Coke in squat 8-ounce cans appear on grocery shelves. The six-packs of dimunitive cans usually cost more than a regular six-pack of 12-ounce/355ml cans, and more than 12 can “fridge packs” of 12-ounce cans when they’re on sale.
What’s the point of these miniature cans of pop? Why would consumers eagerly pay much more for less of the same product?
Maybe the same reason that we buy one 20-ounce can for $1.25 when there are plenty of 2-liter bottles for $0.99?
It’s weird to me … but there are actually quite a lot of people for whom 12 ounces of carbonated beverage is simply too much. Strange, but very true.
I don’t understand it personally, but I’ve witnessed it “in the field”. Just yesterday, one of my coworkers drank about half a can of Diet Coke in an unfamliar office, and thus was plaintively asking around for a place to dump out the remainder.
Don’t ask me – I can’t explain it. Just reporting my observations. The conclusion I draw is that for these folks, eight ounces is a more fitting amount … and the contents therein are less likely to go to waste.
This is true for me. I don’t like to drink a whole 12 ounce can of soda. Sometimes Mrs. Shibb and I will split one. But I usually buy a larger one and then just throw the rest out or drink the remains later.
I am also able to drink lukewarm sodapop without flinching. It’s a gift. What I can’t understand is how anyone can drink more than 20 ounces of soda in a sitting.
My neighbor is a project manager at an aluminum can manufacturer. A few years ago he started travelling to all of their factories to set up 8 oz can production. This might explain why you just started seeing them two years ago. I asked him what the demand was for the cans. He thought is was because an 8 oz can fits in a lunchbox whereas a 12 oz does not. Also, as bordelond says, there are a lot of people that can’t finish 12 oz of drink – children. I remember getting a can of soda after baseball games. As a little kid, I could never finish the can right away and ended up nursing it for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if parents today pick up a case of the 8 oz cans for after baseball games (and the like).
If you add a few ice cubes to a pint glasa, pour in an 8 oz can of Coke, fill it to the top with Bacardi, and garnish with a slice of lime, it makes a perfect giant Cuba Libre.
That’s my theory, it’s for us drunks.
The small cans are perfect for the “midnight thirsties.” If I pop a whole can when I get up, I’ll waste 3/4 of it. But a small can just hits the spot, without much wastage. Then back to bed.
I buy them because I got sick and tired of pouring out 1/2 cans of soda my daughter never finished. The 8 oz solves this little problem quite nicely.
While I don’t recommend giving a lot of soda to kids I think the demand came from parents sick of finding half drank cans of soda sitting around the house.
Kid can’t finish it and it gets warm and goes flat. So he pops open another and does the same thing.
Easier to give him a small one.
Have you been lookin’ in my windows? 
It’s very easy, you see. Just tilt the head back, take a swig, and swallow. Repeat as necessary.
…
ShibbOleth is to bordelond
as
bordelond is to that Japanese guy that can down 40+ hot dogs in one sitting.
I guess we all have our gifts.
My wife is another one who buys the 8 oz. cans. She never finishes a 12 oz. can anyway, and says the smaller cans fit better in her lunchbox.
Yep. Perfect post-nookie sized coke.
Though I doubt that’s what the marketing folks had in mind. Hmmm…‘a coke and a smile.’ Maybe.
-rainy
Some people have a low tolerance for caffeine/sugar/carbonation, but yet a half-can is better than no can at all.
When I was a lad in the long ago time known as the 80’s, we used to get 8 oz cans all the time. Then someone figured out how to explode the sides, 12 ouncers became all the rage, and America got fat.
It’s also worth noting that the six packs of 8 ounce cans are STILL a better deal than paying a dollar for a 20 oz. soda at a vending machine.
I drank them during my sophomore year of college because I had a hobby of drinking random things in the front row of my history class to see if I could derail my prof’s line of thought when he’d try to figure out what I was drinking.
This included:
8 oz. Diet Coke
12 oz. Diet Dr. Thunder
20 oz. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
Water (from a leather horn flask)
what i want to know is why some beer companies put their beer in those little 8oz cans? they do it and i’ve even bought some in a pintch. if i recall correctly i chose the heinnies.
Around here, though, they’re terrible deals compared to a 12-pack.
6 8-ounce cans - $2.00 (~4.2 cents/ounce)
12 12-ounce cans - $3.00 (~2.1 cents/ounce)
I think the soccer mom marketing – that the cans might be appealing to kids – sounds like the most plausable explanation. When I was a kid, back in the 1970s, the consideration of kids was all but ignored by food and beverage companies. Hell, marketing to youth just didn’t exist outside of cereal and toys back then. Now, it’s completely different.
Another voice speaking in favor of the kids. I buy them because they’re a good size for my son – less to drink and no half full cans of soda waiting to be knocked over. The comparative price is worse but, if I was that worried about it, I’d be buying two liters exclusively. Soda falls under a luxury expense for me to begin with so I might as well get what makes me (and the kid) happy.
Speaking as a “soccer dad” (and now a “baseball dad” as well), I have never, ever seen these dispensed to kids. At least not yet. Capri Sun seems to be the drink of choice amongst the soccer set, from my experience. Now, if Coke/Pepsi whoever packaged them in the little mylar pouches, they might get somewhere. But I don’t know if that packaging would work with carbonation.