It’s happening again. Same price, less food. The grocery store shrink ray isn’t giving us a break during this deep recession. Products from tuna and mayo to peanut butter and ice cream are smaller than they used to be, but prices are not. The shrinkage among cereals, which I wrote about last June, continues unabated.
We all know it’s not a new practice. Last October, in a report about shrinking products, Consumer Reports said its top consumer complaint in 1959 was deceptive packaging.
Chris Jansing of NBC News went to a supermarket for Nightly News.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
In 1959? ~!
Oh, it irks me so! It won’t be long before the Econo size coffee can is a whole whopping 1lb of coffee! grrrrrrrrr I write letters/e-mails but it all seems so pointless, one lone ‘little woman’ in a tizzy ( I see my letter pinned to some dart board in a coffee room lol )or even having the opposite effect of accelerating the aggravation!
Hi, Sage! Don’t worry about 2 comments. There’s no limit!
The coffee thing makes me crazy. Every time I see a recipe that mentions a 1-pound coffee can, I know it’s’ old.
One day about a decade ago, when the 1-pound cans already had 13 or 14 ounces, I noticed, thanks to unit pricing on the shelf, that one of the Maxwell House varieties still had a full pound and was priced the same as the smaller ones. It was called 18??, the year the company was founded I think, with an old looking design. It happened to be excellent coffee as well. I bought it almost exclusively. A while back, maybe a year, it just vanished from the shelves. Gone! Not even smaller, just gone. Talk about grrrr.
And yogurt! So many recipes call for 8 ounces or 1 cup and nearly all the big companies have gone to 6 ounces. Luckily, Cabot still offers 8 and their yogurt is wonderful at a great price.
I haven’t checked out Alaska Mudflats since the campaign but will hop over now to read about grocery shopping. Thanks for the tip! The PAC I saw earlier. I nearly plotzed at some of the hypocrisy on her home page. Then again, nothing about her should surprise me.
Good to see you again!
ooops! Sorry for taking up 2 posts and kinda o/t.
Do you read Alaska Mudflats? Excellent post on there about Grocery Shopping in rural AK. And a zingzinger today — SarahPAC! o_0
Wow, sage, I just read that shopping post. Between the logistics and the prices, I’m dumbfounded. Anyone else who’d like to read it will find it here.
It’s even reached a seasonal staple of the American diet—Girl Scout Cookies! What next? http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/01/24/the-girl-scouts-earn-a-cheapskate-patch-fewer-cookies-in-the-bo/
MusEditions’s last blog post..We can all celebrate!
The Scouts too? Puh, is nothing sacred? And did you hear about their goof with Thin Mints? The Kosher certification was left off the box and Scouting had to produce the letter of certification for some rabbis. One of them was very happy because he said Thin Mints are his serious favorites.
At least their peanut butter’s been cleared for takeoff.