Everyone in the supermarket is a suspect

Consumerist has been on the case of the shrinking food package for a while (see also, "The Grocery Shrink Ray," WaPo, Jul 18, 08), but last week, Marketplace turned its attention to a growing phenomenon: food manufacturers are monkeying with packages so they don't appear smaller, but actually are. This way, they can provide you slightly less food at the same price. It's a sneaky way to raise prices without appearing to do so.

With the price commodities going up this year [Simon Kucher & Partners consultant Frank] Luby says shrinking containers might be the lesser of three evils. The other two being cheaper ingredients, which would change the taste of your peanut butter, or alienating even the most loyal consumers with higher shelf prices. Now, Skippy is made by Unilever, a food conglomerate that also put a dent in the bottom of Hellmann's mayonnaise and shrank your carton of Breyer's ice cream. No one there would go on tape but when I raised the deception question, a spokesman said the new weight is clearly marked on the package.

-- "Less Product, Same Price," Jan 8, 09

This is why you always check the price-per-ounce measurement at the store. And log it, if you're extra-paranoid. Angry consumers might look up Unilever's U.S. grocery brands and just avoid those under the assumption that all of them are now monkeying with the packaging. However, Marketplace also tagged General Mills as a stealth downsizer. And we know Tyson foods has also committed shrinkage.

So the lesson here is, if you're boycotting the sneaky downsizers, you might well end up paying more anyway because there's hardly anyone left. Your grocery bill's going up almost any way you look at it.

Comments

[Emily]

Shrinking containers only bother me to the extent that they make the packaging itself more wasteful. I get that food prices go up, and while that may make me upset in a generalized way, I don't see how it's General Mills's fault. If customers were all hyper-rational price-per-ounce calculators, food companies could just raise prices without all this monkeying around. But since we're obviously not, well... can you really blame Unilever for trying to play defense?

[Stephanie]

I would rather they raise prices than shrink packaging. Mainly because I have recipes that ask for "1 can of [whatever]" and if package sizes aren't predictable, that throws the whole recipe off. (Or my mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe that makes 12 dozen cookies and uses "1 box of brown sugar.")

[drunken monkey]

Sigh. Sadly, this is probably for my own good.