@Dervish: I must disagree some what about this being a recent phenomenon.This has been going on for several years at this point.About 3-4 years ago I noticed bleach being reduced from 1 gallon to 96 oz in the same exact shape and labeled container except for size.

I don't think it's just passing on cost but it's as much about the competition siphoning away their business especially with supermarket generics.They don't want to raise the price when they're loosing market share so they reduce volume.

I gonna have to check an annual report for one of these companies and see how profitable they are or aren't.I'll post my findings.

AND KEEP ON POSTING THAT SHRINK RAY INFORMATION

I recycled my old Tropicana Orange Juice jug before I could remember to take a picture, but they have shrunk as well. The old one was 96 ounces and the new is 89. That's one less screwdriver, people. Sorry I don't have the picture to back it up.

If they got consolidated into a weekly or daily thing, I guess that would be okay. Just so they don't go away. I love the Grocery Shrink Ray.

Well I know what choosey moms won't be choosing now...

oh wait was that Jif's slogan?...Nevermind.

@AMetamorphosis: Agreed. I think it's good to call these changes out - as a few people have said, it gives them an easy way to choose who should get their hard-earned money. It seems like it would be very helpful to collect all these items into one daily/every-other-day post.

But to me, the snarky tone taken with a lot of these articles is wearing thin. Commodity and fuel prices are astronomical, and a lot of the easy cost savings have been implemented already. This means that costs have finally reached a point where they need to be passed on to the customer. It's not a one-dimensional case of "big corporation trying to screw the little guy." It sucks that they choose to reduce size rather than increase cost outright, but all the information is still right there in front of the shopper if they're willing to do a little simple arithmetic. Consumerist readers seem very much into personal responsibility, so why is this such an issue?

I've got no reason to point this out except to mock those of you eating Skippy.

Note: I posted my suggestion before I went back and saw that a good dea of other readers agree.

Honestly, how much intelligent on-topic discussion can one have about GSR every other post ?

Ben,

How about starting a new site called:

GROCERYSHINKRAY.com ?

Could you just aggragate these into a once a week post or something? This is becoming tedious and frankly, intelligent consumers that pay attention to what they buy can figure this out. I don't need to know every single product that changes its size or packaging.

I'm no peanut butter Connoisseur, but I got to have strawberry jelly! I have no idea why but when I was a kid my mom never bought it. It was always Welch's concord grape.

That's actually a start for an interesting idea with this subject... an actual database that has the shrunken products, possibly also offering competitor alternatives and the like. Heck, if it got popular, it could reduce the effects of the ray. ;) I'm gonna play around with this idea in my head a bit to see how it could work.

I'm wondering what made Skippy choose "16.3." What the hell were they smoking. 15 is a good number, and should've been the regular size for years.

I still think we should bring attention to as many items as possible, with the goal being to eventually dissuade manufacturers from pulling this trick in the first place. *shrug*

If. One little word, but it means a lot.

(And yes, mods, this comment is waaay off topic, so feel free to delete. And fellow commenters, I swear this is my last one in this post.)

I'm not arguing the topic of the GSR, though I personally think that it was a non-story from the beginning. It's the type of thing that the Consumerist should cover, and the site has done a great job. But it's just beating a dead horse at this point, and GSR posts have largely become a forum on the frequency and relevancy of said posts. That's why I proposed a once a week feature to keep it in readers' minds, but not to overwhelm those who frequent the site.

Not quite, I was reading about this sort of thing in the newspapers such as the WSJ about *15* years ago, and now and again since then. It's the kind of topic that only gets attention in conjunction with stories about economic hardship where alleged journalists can string together trite phrases such as "in these tough economic times" and "where every dollar counts" and "families trying to make ends meet", etc.

We act like this is a new thing, but this really isn't a new phenomenon. I remember watching news reports on this when I was 13 - over 15 years ago.

@basket548:

At the risk of sounding like a Consumerist cultie....

"...I do genuinely enjoy this site, and feel that if it becomes trite and stale it will push away some of the best contributors."

Trite and stale?

Care to show me where there had been any other decent coverage of the shrinking of common grocery items before Consumerist started the GSR posts? I still have yet to see this in Newsweek or the WaPost. In fact, I also think the *first* place I saw this was the Consumerist. This is not the hallmark of a stale site. I've been lurking here for months and have found it to be quite topical and lively... even with all the bellyachers.

Far from being "trite and stale" I think the Consumerist was ahead of the curve on this grocery shrinking thing... as evidenced by the amount of attention the lagging mainstream media has now applied to this topic. Bottom line: I think your concerns are totally misplaced here. If you wish to tilt at "trite and stale" windmills perhaps you should look at Yahoo, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

A look at the mfr.'s web site seems to confirm my suspicions. We're looking at Skippy Natural Creamy on the left and Skippy Natural Super Chunk on the right (unshelled and shelled peanuts in the product shot, respectively).

Thanks for responding to our comments, Ben.

However, I'd like to point out a couple things:

1) Weezy was not referring to 'how the article is written', he was referring to how often these types of articles appear, which really is a site issue, not an author issue.

2) How is my comment off topic? I wrote about the GSR in a GSR post. Should I mention how much I love peanut butter, or how I never noticed that products have shrunk? Because honestly, it's all been said, several times in all the previous GSR posts.

To those who say, well, it's easy to skip it, that's true. But at the same time, I do genuinely enjoy this site, and feel that if it becomes trite and stale it will push away some of the best contributors.

And finally, @courtarro, is there an echo in here?

Also, keep in mind that Weezy F's posting frequency doesn't necessarily reflect on his value as a reader. I visit the Consumerist several times a day as I'm perusing my blog links, but I comment quite rarely. I think I'm still a valuable reader. My two cents.

Many people like the GSR posts. If you don't, don't read them. Don't ruin a solid discussion for those who do. There's plenty other to read.

If you read back about 1.5-2 years ago you'd see that this blog was originally a site that had information on how to be a smarter consumer.

It had tips, tricks, and quite a bit of insider information from different industries on how said industries work and how to work them to get better service or discounts. It also often gave insight as to why some companies have policies that at first glance don't make a whole lot of sense.

To use a rather bad analogy, it was like a gaming site with cheat codes and walkthroughs for games.

It did it without that horrible, screechy sense of entitlement or the Fatwallet-like attitude of getting discounts merely for the sake of getting a discount. Also missing was the "corporations are eeeeeevil" sanctimony that a lot of other sites have.

It was really a much better site.

@Weezy F Baby:

Dude... Breathe in... Breathe out.... Go to your happy place.... Try not to click on links that enrage you. It's not hard to scroll on by to other posts.

And while *you* are personally outraged by the shrink ray posts, I like them and every now and then I actually jump into the article and read a bit of the comments. The issue here is the silent price increases that are being applied with dubious ethics. [ As a sidenote, I, for one, would like to know if these size reductions are being accurately reflected in the CPI figures] I also like to see what companies are playing this little game so I can vote with my wallet. Point is: just because *you* don't find the post interesting does not mean that all Consumerist readers think in lock step. If you don't like it... move along buddy.

Finally... you lose me and probably many others when this becomes a "F*** You" level response to OPs/moderators. You look a little mentally unbalanced when you spew with that level of vitriol and it's unnecessary. Bet you don't communicate like that in person, do you?

I appreciate all the shrink ray posts since I buy all the groceries, I know what to avoid that way.

One problem with peanut butter is that if you buy the bigger containers and don't eat from it constantly is that the oil can go rancid, the problem is that many people can't detect via taste or smell that the oil has gone rancid at all.

You don't like it, don't read it. It is easy not to click on these links.

You know, something just occurred to me.

When the product shrinks by a trivial amount, what happens to the number of servings per package as stated on the label? Does it stay the same, or does it change, or does (say) "16 servings" on the 16.3 ounce size change to "About 16 servings" on the 15 ounce size?

Seriously, this (as well as the perishable milk and meat crisis in the previous post) can have tremendous repercussions on the very poor. When I was a poor college student trying to make ends meet with a minimum wage job and a baby I was unable to breastfeed (didn't have enough milk), we received food assistance for a few months. This wasn't food stamps, but a predetermined list of things I could get once per month. The list said things like "16-oz block of natural cheese" and "20-oz jar of peanut butter". Even at that time the former pound cuts of cheese were packaged in 12-ounce sizes, and the peanut butter was shrunk to an 18-ounce size. Since I wasn't allowed to get more than the list specified, the packagers were basically cheating me and my son out of 4 ounces of cheese a month and 2 ounces of peanut butter... which doesn't really sound like that much, but four ounces of cheese makes four grilled cheese sandwiches or a big casserole dish of macaroni and cheese, and two ounces of peanut butter makes two or three peanut butter sandwiches. That represents, I'd estimate, about five to seven meals.

Arrrrrrrrr. I'm the shrink ray bandit, I took your 1.3oz of peanut butter!!! BWHAHAHAHAHA! Come General Disarray, time to take over the world!!

Actually,most peanut butter used to be 18oz before it was shrunk to 16.3 oz in Skippy's case and now 15 oz.Walgreens had a promotion several weeks back pushing the 16.3oz packaged the same as an 18 oz.Even a local dollar store which used to sell older 18 oz is pushing a 12 oz size

Agreed. And since comments sent directly to the author never have a chance to be heard by the community, which, let's face it, is what keeps this site interesting (I certainly am more interested in the comments), the community should be able to comment about just about anything. Longest sentence ever.

But seriously, Ben, though it is giving the site a lot of pub, why alienate those who come here for genuine consumer stories and stimulating discussion?

I propose a solution, so the precious Shrink Ray is not lost: a weekly feature, highlighting a single item that has been shrunk. You can even make it into a contest, where the submitter 'wins' a prize, maybe even the newly shrunk product.

That way, the grocery shrink ray is not lost, nor is it pounded into our heads every single day. And those that hate it (myself included) can safely ignore that one post a week.

Fuck you. This entire website is about standing up to businesses that take their consumers for granted. If me or anyone else has a problem with the frequency of these stupid "Grocery Shrink Ray" posts, we should be able to air our grievances in the comments section. You're not a newspaper. Hell, you're not even a newsletter. Get over yourselves. And stop posting these dumb stories. I understand that it's cool to be on TV and stuff, but COME ON!

Mo' page views, Mo' Problems.

Now I'm starting to understand why Mallory didn't really dig him.

I'm sure it costs more, but it sure tastes better. And I can make it in small batches (I don't eat much peanut butter, but I do get in the mood sometimes).

Seriously, try homemade peanut butter. It's a world apart.

I have to keep the peanut-flavored vegetable shortening around for my husband, who can't abide natural PB. I honestly am not sure how I ever ate that stuff. I bake with it because I think it bakes more nicely than the hippie kind, but I don't like it for sandwiches and whatnot.