Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Incredible Shrinking Value

I've noted previously that food producers and grocery stores have been pulling a subtle fast one on us by reducing the size of packaged products without lowering costs. I first noticed this with ice cream because I had, ahem, a fair amount of experience buying ice cream. "Half Gallon" was the coin of the realm, but it is now downright rare to find a container of ice cream that holds that much yummy goodness.

Once they started, the food companies just couldn't stop. CNN is reporting that the widespread application of "downsizing" food packaging has now made its way to the cereal aisle. I suppose in this era of overindulgence and overeating, downsizing should be a good thing. However, it should be done honestly by lowering the price to reflect the reduced amount of product sold, rather than skimming money off consumers by charging the same for less.

Interestingly, in the article, the tipoff of downsizing for an interviewed shopper was ... ice cream. Late night snackers, unite!

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