Costco muffins just got smaller. I saw people freeze with confusion
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024
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I'm sure they'll stop this practice post haste.
Bring back the 3L bottles!
What really grinds my gears is when shrinkflation happens to pre-packaged products that are used as ingredients because it throws recipes off. Here's three examples:
Campbell's pre-made soups like Cream of Mushroom or Creamy Tomato changed from 10.75oz down to 10.5oz. If your favorite casserole doesn't taste quite like it used to this is probably why.
Pre-packaged meats like bacon and tuna. For as long as I could remember pre-packaged bacon was always sold in some multiple of a pound, now you have to pay attention because often the bags are 10 or 12oz instead of 16. Growing up tuna was 6.5oz can and its now down to just 5.
The same thing has happened with canned vegetables like green beans or even canned mushrooms. Once you're done adjusting the amount of Cream of Mushroom in that Green Bean Casserole you're going to have to circle back and fix the amount of green beans in it.
When you bust out Grandma's recipe card you need to be careful because her "can" or "jar" of something was almost certainly bigger than what you have!
Oh, and if you are trying to make older recipes it's not just the volume / amount of things that changed it's also the formulation. Almost everything that is pre-processed has been re-formulated over the past 20 years so it no longer cooks or tastes the same as it used to.
Some old recipes are damn difficult to make correctly these days because the ingredients aren't the same type or size. It's frustrating.
last can of tuna i got was literally 50% oil and the rest looked it was mill ends that would usually be shipped to farmers for hog slopping
Hey, let's go one better. Let's require manufacturers to design product containers that don't waste product. I genuinely want to write a letter to whatever government organization oversees this type of stuff (in the US) at some point once I can figure out where, who, and gather documentation.
I'm talking everything. Salsa containers with a lip at the top that keeps all product from pouring out. Thin-necked mayo, tomato sauce, alfredo, etc. food containers that make even using a spatula and beatings difficult.
Then, lets move onto other things like bodywash, household cleaners, even the poop sprays. Airwick's poop spray is a good example. When the package is half-empty, tilting it to spray will pull the hose out of the liquid unless you rotate the container to resubmerge it. You can't even get half the product out before it is troublesome. Its whole life will be spent tilted at a 90 degree angle to spray in a toilet bowl. Why even use a hose? Oh, wait...for the profits.
More minor things, Bodywashes like Suave that switched from squeeze bottles to pumps. Most hand soaps also end up here too. The container is shaped with a dome in the bottom for structural reinforcement and the hose touches the reinforcement instead of extending all the way down to the bottom. Or every lotion bottle ever made.
Net sum, you end up with a few ounces of product that can't be used. Most people probably just chuck it and buy a new one. Just to spite them I try to use up every last drop of whatever, but it is an annoying effort every time.
The manufacturer doesn't care because the product being sold is the least expense of the entire supply chain, but think of the supply chain...
Let's talk body lotion and estimate 4oz of unused product in every lotion bottle (probably closer to 6, but even 1 adds up) and a 16oz lotion bottle.
I used AI to scrape the web for some numbers, so huge grain of salt here, but, it estimates a 40 foot cargo container and a packaging efficiency of 80%, that 37,000 bottles of 16oz lotion could fit in one container.
That's 148,000oz (1156.25 gallons, 4376.9 liters) of unused product being pointlessly shipped around per cargo container, with intent that it will be thrown away, per container. That is fuel in ships, trucks, aircraft, trains, delivery vans, peoples' cars all being burned to transport something that will never be used.
Multiply that by every kind of product line that does the same thing, it's a boondoggle of energy waste, pollution, CO2 generation, and customer ripoffery.
Mandatory changing of the design of packages for food, body, and other products could all by itself help with climate change on a planetary scale, as well as keeping the shrinkflaters more honest.
I'm fine with Coke and Pepsi keeping their shrinkflation.
Coke, Pepsi, and General Mills must have missed their payments.
Posturing without any follow-through is how politics generally works
Warren isn't bought by them.
Here I'm starting to see "family sized" chocolate bars that are way more expensive but it weights the same grams as the old size before shrinkflation.
"family sized" here may refer to not how much a family can/should consume of the chocolate, but all they can afford. /s
On the one hand, I'm in favour of portion sizes getting smaller for junk foods.
On the other hand, I'd prefer to be getting the same amount of stuff each time I buy the same product. I'd rather prices go up instead of things getting stealthily smaller.
The worst is when they use the same packaging, but just have less product. Kraft Dinner/instant Mac & Cheese being a particularly egregious offender...
Seems like there should be some way to tax packaging to combat that crap.
Fuckingcapitalists
They will just have to raise prices. It won't actually benefit consumers
They are already raising prices too, you pay more for less.
You won't get it cheaper, that's not how it works.
Shrink flation is a form of price gouging because it's deceptive.
Before inflation hit I bought the same brand of chips for over a year. The company both raised the prices and reduce the size of the container.
Effectively raising the price on me twice while hiding half of the price increase.
Once I saw that they had reduced the size of the bag of chips by 20%, and had tried to price gouge me, I switched to a different brand of chips.
Some inflation is going to happen naturally and I accept that. But this was not natural inflation where corporations had to raise the prices. It was greed.
The initial price increase was enough to cover inflation. The rest went to shareholders. If the price increase had been fair, they wouldn't have hid it behind shrinkflation.
Price gouging is a pejorative term used to refer to the practice of increasing the prices of goods, services, or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair by some.
Nothing to do with deceptive packaging.
It was greed
They can just raise the prices more
The rest went to shareholders
The rest always goes to shareholders. You imagine inflation going like this:
Price is $4, so it's sold for $5. When the price goes to $6, it's sold for $7
Inflation actually goes like this:
When the price is $6, it's sold for $7.50 because shareholders don't like lower margins
You're right about raising prices, but it will benefit consumers. If you're making a recipe, you won't have to buy 2 things instead of one and then figure out what you're gonna do with a weird fraction of some ingredient.
It'll be less wasteful in terms of packaging too. That's better for the environment.
All their “deals” are like 10.5oz canned sodies for $10/12pk or 3 pks for $20. They sell sugar and water and carbonation and they price it like expensive spring water. It’s poison.
It’s awful, but it has been going on for decades.
So why not do something about it?
Something should be done about it, and as I mentioned elsewhere, the French supermarket chain putting stickers on shelves to warn consumers is one thing that can be done, as is mandatory unit prices (common where I live). And those things would be newsworthy. An ‘attempt to get to the bottom of it’ is just hot air
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