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Derv
January 27, 2009 4:41 AM
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I'm thinking the embed code for this video is wrong...it's showing a video taking about Lehman Brothers' CEO selling his house.

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layton59
January 27, 2009 4:01 PM
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@Derv: Video worked fine for me. Morningstar Farms SHRUNK the size of my veggie hot dogs. They used to be 16 ounces and now they are 11.6 ounces. OF COURSE THE PRICE STAYED THE SAME. Why are veggie dogs $3.99 a pack anyway? It is not like they had the overhead of animal hot dog products. I bought all that my local KROGER'S had in stock (about 7 packages). WAL-MART had already sold out of the 16 ounce size. The veggie sausage links stayed the same at 8 measley ounces. MORNINGSTAR FARMS I am starting to HATE you.

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compuguy1088
January 27, 2009 4:54 AM
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Finally!!! I was wondering when the grocery shrink ray segment was to be aired on the NBC nightly news. It came as a surprise that it took this long.

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TVGenius
January 28, 2009 2:32 PM
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@compuguy1088: I was watching at my family's house and I mumbled something about the \"grocery shrink ray\". My grandma asked what I meant and I said it was a term used on a blog I read called Consumerist and I wouldn't be surprised if they interviewed Ben\" and right as I said his name he popped up on screen... ha ha ha. I had totally forgotten about the story...

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Wormfather is Wormfather
January 27, 2009 2:31 PM
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@compuguy1088: Whats worse is that in a fit of irony, the pointed the shrink ray at Ben's appearence.


I was watching last night and was spitting mad, my wife thought I knew Ben personally or something.

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drjayphd
January 27, 2009 4:57 AM
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That's a lot of monitors you've got there, Ben... been feeding your computer Powerthirst again?

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Cat_In_A_Hat
January 27, 2009 4:57 AM
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Yeah Ben. Potato chips and cereal very obvious. I never noticed the yogurt thing though. This ought to be illegal.

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RobLikesbrunch
January 27, 2009 5:17 AM
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@Cat_In_A_Hat:

No, it shouldn't. It's within the manufacturer's complete rights to package their product how they like, as long as they correctly indicate how much the package contains.

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Davan
January 27, 2009 12:34 PM
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@RobLikesbrunch: No, it definitely shouldnt be illegal. However, what SHOULD be illegal is trying to hide the shrink. There SHOULD be a law that says they must clearly state on the package that the size was decreased, and inform the consumer if the price changed in any way along with that.


Everyone knows that people tend to buy the same thing each month, and just in the act of picking it up you probably wont notice a missing 2oz of mayonnaise. But if they were forced to clearly state that a change had been made it might make people think twice about the product they choose.

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Beerad
January 27, 2009 3:09 PM
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@Davan: So, you're saying that I should be required by law to notify customers that my product is a worse value than it used to be? And that this is because customers are too oblivious to pay attention to what they're buying at any given time?


I'm not sure that a federal requirement to force manufacturers to use packaging that makes a customer \"think twice\" about buying the product is going to go over well. Call me crazy.

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Con Seannery hates Facebook and Trebek
January 27, 2009 5:06 AM
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Just goes to show you, CHECK THE OUNCES!

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Daniel Lamin
January 27, 2009 5:10 AM
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what does it matter? its not like they are selling the 30oz AND 32oz mayo jars. you buy what they got. end of discussion. nothing you can do about it

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Ash78 ain't got time to bleed
January 27, 2009 1:22 PM
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@Daniel Lamin: Actually, almost every recent trip to the grocery store I've seen some old packaging on the shelf next to the newer, same-size packaging with less material. Same price.


I like to think I'm in the 90th percentile of savvy shoppers, but this is just willfully deceptive and underhanded. Price increases are fine with me, but changing more than one factor at a time has the potential to backfire among a brand's loyal shoppers. As well it should, hence threads and stories like this. Everyone should get the word out.

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Con Seannery hates Facebook and Trebek
January 27, 2009 5:39 PM
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@Ash78: I like it when they hide their shrinking behind the whole NEW LOOK, SAME GREAT TASTE packaging. The OOOOOH, FLASHY COLORS reaction in most people will overwhelm the \"Hey, this doesn't seem like as much...\" reaction.

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tande04
January 27, 2009 5:57 AM
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@Daniel Lamin: I think you're kinda missing the point of the entire site.

If you're just going to bend over and take it go for it.

What consumerist tries to do is bring things like this to the public attention so that the companies can't just bend you over.

The point is that companies had two options. They could of raised prices and kept the product the same or given you less and charge the same they've been choosing to do the later and hoping that people just shut up and buy it. It matters because if nothing else, even if you shop the same, even if you buy the same, you should be a little pissed about it because at this point these companies think you're too stupid to notice.

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Daniel Lamin
January 27, 2009 5:59 AM
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@tande04:
haha i think i did just miss the point. now i feel stupid

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TechnoDestructo
January 27, 2009 5:25 AM
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@Daniel Lamin:

If there are two brand of an item, and one has shrunk and the other has not, you can (and should) buy the one that has not shrunk.

I dunno about you but I don't like my peanut butter to taste like LIES.

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PlasmaMachine
January 27, 2009 5:14 AM
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Fine by me.. I buy store-brand anyway. Cheaper and basically the same quality for the most part.

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Davan
January 27, 2009 12:37 PM
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@PlasmaMachine: Cheaper, yes. Same quality... eh I dont know about that...


Besides, I try not to buy store brand too much because it is such a HUGE profit for the grocery stores. The quality is 'off' enough that if the store brands ever ran the real brands out of business (or they sold enough to just stop carrying the real brands), then you would lose all choice and the store would just sell their own brands. I really dont want to see that happen.


But, store brand water Ill buy.

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PoliticalScapegoat
January 27, 2009 7:04 PM
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@Davan: Ever tried Malt-o-meal cereal? IMO, they taste better than the product being copied, plus you can see how much you are getting in the plastic bag.

Granted, not all store/generic brands are as good as the original, but quite a few are even better. It's trial and error.

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Davan
January 28, 2009 3:49 AM
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@PoliticalScapegoat: Nah Im not a huge cereal eater. What is the original version of malt-o-meal? :P I cant figure that out.


Truthfully though in many cases its not hard to make something taste better - jam in more sugar, or fat, or salt and it tastes better. I wonder how many of the items that you guys prefer are noticeably higher in calories/fat than their copied counterparts...

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acknight
January 27, 2009 2:04 PM
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@Davan: At least in the case of Wegmans, some of their private label brands taste _better_ than their name-brand counterparts.

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kyle4
January 27, 2009 5:23 AM
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Ben's a celebrity now. He has the backing of Consumer Reports, it can't get any better then this.

Thanks though, been looking for shrink ray everywhere. Found it in spades with Doritos chips in both the Nacho and Cool Ranch variety.

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Barbara Merry
January 28, 2009 11:52 PM
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Ben has always been a celebrity. now he even wears a sports coat to work! looking good BEN!!!! xo

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youbastid
January 27, 2009 5:25 AM
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Two I just recently noticed:

El Monterey family pack burritos, down to 8 from 10. They jacked UP the price about 50 cents on those as well.

Litehouse dressing, formerly 16oz, now 12oz, same price.

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Shadowfire
January 27, 2009 5:42 AM
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Dreamfields pasta was a favorite of my wife and I.. but they recently (well, a few months ago) dropped the size from 16oz boxes to 13.5 oz.

Oh, then two months later, the price went up about $0.70 per box.

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David Mays
January 27, 2009 6:08 AM
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I think the truly smart consumer move here is to quit buying at the grocery store, as much as possible. Just buy in bulk at a warehouse store. Bulk packaging won't be immune to this effect, but the cost differential to the consumer should be less per unit.


I also find the wastefulness of the \"shrink ray\" offensive. Now that there is less product per packaging unit, it means we will put more trash in our landfills for the same volume of food.


And finally, all the extra trips to the store, both for consumers and food deliveries, are another tremendous waste.


The bottom line is that the food producers are screwing all of us, bigtime.

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RandomHookup
January 27, 2009 11:37 AM
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@David Mays: Except that we have learned here that buying in bulk isn't always cost effective either.

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TonyTriple
January 27, 2009 6:56 AM
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Till those corporate bitches pay up I say pimp it, pimp it hard.

I want my two ounces back!

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InThrees
January 27, 2009 10:23 AM
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What? \"Grocery Shrink Ray?\" What's all this about?

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raleel
January 27, 2009 12:25 PM
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My groceries have largely been immune to the shrink ray, but certainly not price increases. We don't buy a lot of prepackaged foods

Toilet paper is the one that gets me the most though, particularly after the move to the regular/biggie/mega roll business. I looked at the regular rolls... those are not regular, those are 1/3 smaller than regular rolls. It's getting to the point where I'm thinking installing and learning to use a bidet makes financial sense.

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Davan
January 28, 2009 3:51 AM
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@raleel: Oh god, bidets are so gross. I dont think a bidet precludes toilet paper use however.. the house i grew up in had a bidet in my parents bedroom, no one EVER used it, EVER.

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normanm4
January 27, 2009 12:31 PM
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Ben, you looked totally supersized yourself.

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Gorphlog
January 27, 2009 12:39 PM
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I really just wish they would jack up the price a little. Many of the dishes I make require a certain amount of an ingredient like say 16oz of Spaghetti. Now that the boxes are 12oz I have to buy 2 and only use a little of the second box and by the time I use the rest of the box its stale. Just leave it alone and raise the price a little.

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LJKelley
January 27, 2009 2:57 PM
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@Gorphlog: Ya that is what scares me. So many recipes ask for a can of this or a package of this. Sure most recipes state they want the 10.5 OZ Can of Cream of Mushroom Soup. But what happens to your recipe when it shrinks to 10 OZ or less? Buying two could be wasteful if you don't cook that recipe that often...


Just be honest and increase the prices. I can accept our economic times, but I guess I should also accept that the majority of business and thus wealth is cause by dishonesty.

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Ash78 ain't got time to bleed
January 27, 2009 1:17 PM
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@Gorphlog: THIS.


The inclusion of certain, longstanding package sizes into recipes REALLY screws things up when the packages change over time.

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bohemian
January 27, 2009 1:04 PM
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I noticed cans of tuna have been hit too. The brand name cans looked oddly thinner. Then I saw some cans of store brand that had not been changed yet. They were normal height cans at 6 oz. All of the brand name cans that looked oddly shorter were 5oz. The brand name used to be the same size (6oz) as the store brand. Removing an ounce of product on that small of an item is a big decrease and the prices had gone up also.

Stores should be required by federal law to post the cost per unit on the shelf and all brands of similar product should have to use the same unit of measurement. They also need to make it in big enough print so you can read it.

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orlo
January 28, 2009 12:09 AM
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@bohemian: Some tuna is still 6oz, but the servings have been reduced from 2.5 to 2. Also quality has noticeably decreased on several brands-- they are now pureed fish scraps. In fact, I think I won't be able to justify buying the stuff any more.

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ZekeSulastin
January 27, 2009 1:14 PM
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@bohemian:
. . .

Pretty much every store ever (at least, the Giants and Wal-Marts and Food Lions and Harris Teeters and Weis Markets and Military Commissaries I've been to) DOES put the unit price on the shelf, whether it be by pound, oz, kilogram, or whatever. Your post is indicative of the real reason the shrink ray keeps wasting space on this site - people can't be bothered to look.

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ElizabethD
January 27, 2009 3:11 PM
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@ZekeSulastin:

Well, I can be bothered and I *do* look at unit prices, but I don't keep a database of what those unit prices were 6 months or a year or two ago. So basically I'm just comparing unit prices between similar products at the given time that I'm shopping, not judging whether a brand has upped its unit price by shrinking its container contents.

Shopping shouldn't be a challenge to become a human computer, IMO - at least not for everyday comestibles. (I've been wanting to use that word. Ah!)

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Bailen
January 27, 2009 7:43 PM
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@ElizabethD: But you would know if they upped the price of the product correct? Learning and watching the unit price is no different from learning and watching the actual price.

Maybe we all should be looking strictly at unit price and forget about actual price, then we will always know if something fishy is going on.

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Rectilinear Propagation
January 27, 2009 1:55 PM
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...people can't be bothered to look.

@ZekeSulastin: I think a lot of people don't even know it's there.

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TrueBlue63
January 27, 2009 1:32 PM
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@ZekeSulastin:

Just to add, it would be a state law, not a federal one, so by all means write to your state legislator, and encourage this.

But, it will mean more expensive groceries!! All that signage will be paid for by consumers.

Another idea, get yourself a small solar powered calculator (maybe $5), and just do the math your self.

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Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!)
January 27, 2009 2:22 PM
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@TrueBlue63: \"But, it will mean more expensive groceries!! All that signage will be paid for by consumers.\"

They already pay for it in most states, and I bet it costs them more to work it out in as many units as possible to be deceptive, instead of using a standardized unit that, hey, the computer could just do all at once.

\"Another idea, get yourself a small solar powered calculator (maybe $5), and just do the math your self.\"

Or use your cell's calculator. I do this way more now that I always have a calculator with me.

Also, we have free unlimited texting, so I like to text google ( [www.google.com] ) for unit conversion sometimes when I'm doing this. Because I have a total mental block on liquid measurement conversions in particular. You can text google \"14.2 oz. in quarts\" and it'll do the whole conversion for you.

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Bailen
January 27, 2009 1:30 PM
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@ZekeSulastin: Same thing up in the great white north, all of our major grocery stores; Lawblaws, Sobeys, Dominion/Metro, Fortino's... all use cents per 100g on most of their products or a suitable measurement on liquids and such. The nice thing as well is this seems to be uniform across all chains as well, If Metro uses c/100g on cherios and c/10oz on say cooking oil, Sobeys will use the same measurements on the same products. Keeps everything nice and simple and uniform and makes it much easier to search for the better deal.

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Adrienne Willis
January 27, 2009 1:48 PM
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I know its random but Ben you are a cutie!

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Blueskylaw
January 27, 2009 2:12 PM
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Land o Lakes spreadable butter

NEW SIZE!!!!!! Now 15 ounces

But wait, it was 16 ounces before????

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TechnoDestructo
January 31, 2009 11:12 PM
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@Blueskylaw:

Didn't EVERYTHING used to be multiples of 8 or 12 ounces?

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Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!)
January 27, 2009 2:24 PM
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I've noticed the supermarket selling 20-can cases of soda for the same price that the 24-can cases used to go on sale, which makes me think it's a good deal until I realize it's only 20 cans.

The 24-can cases are still there (though never in the same PLACE as the 20-can cases, or I would have gotten a cell snap), so it doesn't seem like they're phasing them out? Or not yet? But the 20 cans for the sale price of 24 seems deceptive.

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ScottHardy
January 27, 2009 2:40 PM
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I saw this last night Ben. You looked good! Your delivery is getting smoother with every appearance on the old Boob Tube.

Nice work! Thanks for staying on top of the issue!

I've been impacted by the cereal boxes with less cereal in them. What a crock! I'm waiting for the day a gallon of milk is no longer a gallon...

Warm Regards,
Scott Hardy
\"What settlements can YOU claim? Find out at [www.TopClassActions.com]\"

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Fresh-Fest-1986
January 27, 2009 3:12 PM
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@ScottHardy: Your sincerity doesn't cancel out the advertisement at the end of your post.

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ElizabethD
January 27, 2009 3:08 PM
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Yay, Ben. I know it's bizarre, but when I see you fronting for Consumerist.com on television, I feel all proud.... \"We are Consumerist, mighty mighty Consumerist...\" :D

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JanDuKretijn
January 27, 2009 4:18 PM
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I can understand why people would be upset about this, but speaking from the perspective of a single guy, this doesn't matter too much to me. I can rarely ever use an entire loaf of bread or jar of mayonnaise before it expires. I'd prefer things came in smaller portions, even if it means the price remains the same. I've lived in Europe, and food in the USA is cheaper almost universally, so I'm used to paying more for less. The bothersome thing, though, as Ben points out, is the deceptive nature of the packaging.

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orlo
January 28, 2009 12:13 AM
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@JanDuKretijn: Yeah, but you'll be pissed when they make the slices of bread smaller. (And you realize that you can freeze bread)

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ShizaMinelli
January 27, 2009 6:11 PM
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I had to lol @ \"The incredible shrinking package\" :)


Grocery Store shrink ray sounds a wee better

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
January 27, 2009 7:42 PM
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Aside from the fact that the downsizing of consumables seems to be a trend all companies are adopting, what really galls me is this summer when they were raising prices the excuse given was that oil was so high they HAD to. Of course now that oil is 1/3 what it was they have no plans of lowering that price increase - they're hoping we forget so that this summer they can do it all over again. When coupled WITH shrinking packages its even worse.

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Anonymous
January 27, 2009 10:46 PM
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\"shrinking\" has been around for quite a while. What ticks me off is that the price is the same -- or goes up a little -- even tho the consumer is getting less and less all the time. U.S. CPI index doesn't even include food prices -- so we are all \"to believe\" that inflation is in check! Yeah, right!!

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UniComp
January 27, 2009 11:25 PM
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I don't like the video's tone. They act like these companies are maliciously pulling the wool over our eyes. The truth is, this is a frequently occurring marketing strategy. Sometimes sizes are bigger, sometimes smaller. In a recession, stuff like this should be expected. If you're a consumer, and you're surprised by this, you are not a good consumer.

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orlo
January 28, 2009 12:20 AM
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@UniComp: Not true. The size has been static for the lifetime of many of these products, with the occasional \"Bonus Size\". When the size of a box of pasta and can of tuna is reduced, recipes and serving #s are completely thrown out of whack.

And this recession is supposed to lead to a deflation of prices. Many of these food companies actually have increasing profits, which is a hostile move when consumers' income is uncertain/falling. It's especially grating that companies are not competing by announcing that their packaging is bigger, but rather reducing to the same size as their competitors and touting their New Size.

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