Many years ago I wrote about how Edy’s ice cream was shrinking. It’s a trick companies use to continue to charge the same amount of money for less goods. I used it to illustrate how inflation can happen, but what it’s really all about is profit. Though I am weak and continue to buy Edy’s (just love that slow churned stuff) I still remain angry.
It’s no surprise to you or me that this is happening all around, and in different ways. Consumer Reports, in their most recent issue, is calling out the food companies and brands that are screwing you out of food you’ve paid for.
OK, so maybe you didn’t pay for it. The way this works is the food producers will continue to use the same size packaging, but slowly reduce the amount of food that’s in the container. There is no lying since they’ll change the net weight, or count of items in the packaging. But this is deceptive. Manufacturers are giving consumers (you and me) the perception that we are getting more than we actually do.
The companies naturally have excuses for things like this. One-A-Day vitamin maker Bayer insists the bottle needs to be that big in order to display all the information they want to show. What a bunch of crap. A maker of frozen fish insists the giant packaging is to maintain product integrity. This is of course at the expense of the integrity of the company. The makers of Texas Toast leave 1/3 of the box open for shock absorption and air circulation. Shock absorption is almost enough to shut me up, but why does frozen, sealed food need air circulation? It’s the last thing you want.
If you aren’t upset yet, perhaps I pitch this to you as a greenie. All these packages need to be shipped. They must be put on giant, polluting trucks and sent all over the country. If 1/3 of the packaging is air, you’re shipping 1/3 air. Make the packaging 1/3 smaller and you can cut your shipping costs by 1/3! Any distributor would be glad to have that on their resume, and that’s a huge savings in shipping costs, not to mention the reduction in emissions. **Warning, this is an oversimplification of the math and due to added weight per truck, the reduction in costs and emissions wouldn’t be exactly 1/3. Also this assumes all trucks are filled to capacity, which they are not. Example is for illustration purposes only.**
So why do they continue to use such large packaging? If they could save money on shipping, and have more shelf space in stores, why not just reduce the packaging? The only thing I think of is they’re making more money be tricking us into thinking we’re getting more, than they would by the savings in shipping costs.
Make sure you read the article, linked above and see all the pictures of deceptive packaging. What say you? Are the packages as deceptive as I think, or does our food really need that much room to stretch out? And if it does, why doesn’t ALL food need as much space?
 By The Weakonomist |
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Said,
Of course it is deceptive. Even companies that claim to be green deceive this way. If all the air space in a bag of chips is to protect the chips, how come 90% of them are broke? Pringles doesn’t leave much room in their containers, but they chips are tasty and unbroken?
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