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Thu 10 Jul, 2008 07:06 pm
Driving home, I caught the tail end of an interview on NPR, regarding the economy.
All I really heard of the last part of it was the person being interviewed talking about how some business are now making smaller packages of products, rather than cut the price. He said how they hoped the "myopic public" would not notice they are being "cheated"
But are we?
I remember as a girl, an ice cream cone was a scoop of ice cream in a cone. Not a huge waffle cone with 12 ounces of ice cream jammed into it. Going to McDonalds meant the luxury of being allowed to get 2 hamburgers (meaning the small little burgers no one buys anymore, except in a Happy Meal) and a small strawberry shake. When the Big Mac came out....horrors! Who could eat that much? The Quarter Pounder, the Whopper? If you ate one, you'd be stuffed.
Because going to McDonalds when young was a special treat, I consider it to an extent a comfort food, and occassionaly get one going through a drivethrough. Now, I'm not sure how much that little hamburger costs, .79 or .89 cents. BUT, for 10 cents more you can get a DOUBLE beef CHEESEburger. And of course they're banking on the fact many people will also get the fries, apple pie, whatever else they sell.
I'll bet a lot of people would feel "ripped off" spending .89 cents for a hamburger, that might be all they wanted, knowing for a dime more they can get something really big and nasty.
For years we have be coaxed to buy the "NEW JUMBO SIZE! 50% LARGER, FOR ONLY A BUCK MORE!!!"
So, in order to be a smart consumer, we buy the larger size, and consume whatever it is passed a level of comfort. Don't worry, you'll adjust.
We have adjusted, so the point we scoff at a small (used to be regular) size ice cream cone, feeling denied that this treat doesn't fill us up like a meal, which BTW, you're going to be eating in less than an hour.
With all the money we've "saved" over the years buying the bargain sizes, that have made us sick, fat and increased our insurance premiums, we'd be better off paying the same price for a 12 oz package of something at the store, when it used to be 16 oz. The 12 oz was all we really wanted.
Hershey bars have always had varying sizes. As costs go up, they use progressively smaller moulds. When they get to the bottom, the raise the price and go back to the large moulds.
Re: The end of "supersize me"?
Chai wrote: we'd be better off paying the same price for a 12 oz package of something at the store, when it used to be 16 oz. The 12 oz was all we really wanted.
you should talk to
this guy
It's an international wave. Britain has a campaign aimed at stopping people from buying more food than they need:
Buy one get one free is a waste
Re: The end of "supersize me"?
djjd62 wrote:Chai wrote: we'd be better off paying the same price for a 12 oz package of something at the store, when it used to be 16 oz. The 12 oz was all we really wanted.
you should talk to
this guy
"I'm not gonna purchase your product anymore, or ever again."
and
You only have the 12 oz roll. I don't mind paying more for the 16 oz roll, but you don't make it any more.
and
You try to feed a family of 5 on a 12 oz roll of sausage and a couple dozen eggs.
Coffee is the one that frosts my cojones . . . used to be you bought a one pound can or a three pound can. The can sizes have remained the same, but now there's 11 oz. in the one pound can and 33 oz. in the three pound can.
Re: The end of "supersize me"?
Chai wrote:djjd62 wrote:Chai wrote: we'd be better off paying the same price for a 12 oz package of something at the store, when it used to be 16 oz. The 12 oz was all we really wanted.
you should talk to
this guy
"I'm not gonna purchase your product anymore, or ever again."
and
You only have the 12 oz roll. I don't mind paying more for the 16 oz roll, but you don't make it any more.
and
You try to feed a family of 5 on a 12 oz roll of sausage and a couple dozen eggs.
being from texas, is it true that the maple and sage is only for people up north
i love that line
yes, he did seem very upset about that maple and sage situation.
anyway...
I guess what it boils down to for me is, would you rather pay more for too much food, or the same price for a little less?
I'd opt for the 2nd, because that amount is enough.
Setanta wrote:Coffee is the one that frosts my cojones . . . used to be you bought a one pound can or a three pound can. The can sizes have remained the same, but now there's 11 oz. in the one pound can and 33 oz. in the three pound can.
I think this is really more along the lines of what the guy was talking about. Crap sold in boxes that doesn't fill the box and such... The local news here ran a clip the other night about how Kleenex tissues still come in the same size box but they are now 1/2" shorter than they used to be. They had a whole collection of these sorts of marketing tricks. Bars of soap that have gotten smaller over the years, prepared foods that have shrunk in size but the box stayed the same size, Toilet paper and paper towels where they've increased the size of the center cardboard roll and cut the number of sheets, etc...
It isn't thinigs like burgers, fries or fountian soft drinks that you can easily see that are getting smaller. It's the stuff that is hidden in packaging that you don't open until a few days after you've left the store - to late to change your mind at that point.
If the Jimmy Dean complainer ever saw the hog farms where the pork comes from he would become a vegetarian.
Yeah, Fishin', somebody gave us some cherry cordials at Xmas. When i opened a box, there were two layers of plastic tray. It was obvious that at one time, there would have been 18 candies in the box, nine in each tray, three by three. But the trays now held on candy in each of the four corners, and one in the center, for a total of ten in the box. I'll be the price has gone up while the contents have decreased, too.
You see that in a lot of things--the packaging scams. It really killed me that we got some fancy-schmancy "all natural" chocolate chip cookies. It was 6 oz of cookies in two pounds of packaging (slight exaggeration there, but you know what i mean). They were braggin' about bein' a green company, and at the same time rippin' the consumer off with packing that filled over 50% of the interior of the outer package, and generating mounds of waste paper.
What, they use telekinesis to make sure you recycle the wads of paper left over from their package?
About the time they changed the coffee sizes, they began selling four lb bags of sugar for what we had been paying for five. I used enough sugar then, it made me angry. Since then I weaned myself off of most of it.
yes but thanks to modern food technology and hormonal delivery systems, we have pituitary giant turkeys that are incapable of breeding by themselves and who, developed for elephantiasis breasts, sell for the same , or less than they did when I was a kid
I always wanted to get a designer turkey and raise it and let it live out a natural life just to see what would kill it, obesity related cardiomyopathy or hip dysplasia or cancer of the liver.
I see set and fishin's points about the rip off packaging, and agree, with a caveat.
Yes, it is wrong to package a smaller amount of something, then add an equal weight of packaging material to make up the difference. That's deception.
The mere size of the package with a lesser amount of product? That I'm not so sure of. At some point the consumer needs to be aware that the package feels lighter, looks at the weight listed, and make their choice from there. Where that point is, I'm not sure.
I say this because we have been trained over generations now that bigger is better, and buying the big box must mean the product is superior. I can also remember when the packages of certain products started enlarging, and in my basically utilitarian mind, I was disturbed by this excess....but, I adjusted. Look at pictures of products of the past and see the size difference from now. Perhaps the public needs another aclimation to adjust to reasonable sizes again.
When I picture people in, let's say Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands shopping for food, I always see them as buying fewer, smaller packages. Small cheeses as opposed to a 2 pound block of velveeta, etc. Did a 2 pound block of velveeta even exist 20 or 30 years ago?
We value quantity over quality. I've picked up a package of something attractively packaged, very unusual, something I've never bought or tasted before, and despite the fact I was ignorant of the product, was sure there "wasn't enough" in the package.....yet, when I brought it home, found that the quality more than made up for the small amount.
The same way people are realizing they don't need a vehicle the size of a football stadium to get to work, because of higher gas prices, maybe people can start to realize they don't need a super duper size bag of chips to have a snack.
I know some of the major restaurants, if you can call them that, pull that trick with meat patties.
Start a new burger or sandwich or line, at a large size as advertised, and put it at a bargain price.
It's cheap. It's big. And yes, people will buy it if it's cheap and big - even if it is pure garbage.
Anyways. After there is a good market of people already buying it, and wanting it, and recognizing it - the meat gets slightly smaller. Or the bun. Or they start adding more extras and less 'product'.
Even if people do notice (and sometimes they do, because places like Fast food joints get greedy in cutting corners anywhere they can and are usually all based on a tiered and exclusive group of suppliers where the philosophy is "Guy on top screws me, but I screw the guy down the below") ...
even if they notice, people will keep buying.
People are lazy. And suggestible. And for the most part, won't bother to do anything if they can help it and someone has 'hooked' them on something they now think they like.
So the containers stay the same. And people might bitch a bit.
But they feed it. And buy it. So the **** will go on.
........What I HATE is the wasted packaging! The gets my goat. I don't want to pay for packaging, and don't use more than is needed cause it's a bloody waste of money (mine) and material (that goes in all our land dumps and whatnot).
I try to put my buck where my mouth is. And who can buy fast food even if it is a comfort knowing how sick those guys are? Not just the food, but there whole way of making money and 'contribution' to the world.
CDs, Vinyl LPs, and MP3
Speaking of wasted product packaging and inflated (non)values....how about CDs? The packaging for those -what an environmental joke! And, as for value, the "hits" at best are maybe 2 on an album.
I no longer buy CDs as of about 2005 and, even then, I had trickled down to 2 per year. Usually, when I buy CDs, it's as gifts for others. For my music, I only buy old and NEW (yes..it's back) vinyl LPs. I always liked the artwork and prefer seeing lyrics, too. Now, that's value!
If I want something new and only one or two songs, then I d/l the mp3 and yes, I PAY, not pirate! If I went high fidelity, then I buy the vinyl.
Chai wrote:The mere size of the package with a lesser amount of product? That I'm not so sure of. At some point the consumer needs to be aware that the package feels lighter, looks at the weight listed, and make their choice from there. Where that point is, I'm not sure.
Certainly the buyer needs to beware.
But the thing is, that packaging is a major cost of any product nowadays.
The manufacturer is really saving money by shrinking the amount in the package; the goal is to make the consumer buy the product more often.
Re: CDs, Vinyl LPs, and MP3
Ragman wrote:If I want something new and only one or two songs, then I d/l the mp3 and yes, I PAY, not pirate! If I went high fidelity, then I buy the vinyl.
iTunes is a great consumer empowerment tool.
Anybody who doesn't want to sell their tunes through iTunes just won't be able to sell to me.
DrewDad wrote:The manufacturer is really saving money by shrinking the amount in the package; the goal is to make the consumer buy the product more often.
that's why that poor texas guy has to keep going out and buying 12 oz packages of sausage!
DrewDad, yes, I agree with your point.
If the package were smaller, we'd be paying a fairer price for the product in it.
But, like I said, we've been conditioned for a while to belief it the package isn't big, we're not getting our moneys worth.
see, the small package is going to get insecure with all the big packages sitting near it on the shelf, and will worry that women, who are bigger shoppers, will not pick them on account of their size.
seriously, it will take time for people to realize they don't need all that much product, or packaging to have enough.
I opened a can of Honey Boy pink salmon, for lunch. The content came 3/4 of an inch below the rim. I don't know for certain that they shorted it, because it has been a long time since I opened one. I get suspicious of everything anymore.
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