Since last fall, manufacturers have been hard at work shrinking the products you buy everyday in an effort to make a price increase be less obvious.
*MOUSE PRINT:
Ball Park Franks recently decreased their package size by one ounce, so their one pound packages are now just 15 ounces.
*MOUSE PRINT:
Chobani decreased the size of their yogurt containers to 5.3 ounces saying they were just matching what competitors had done. Remember the days when the standard yogurt container was eight ounces? Thanks to SW and Richard G. for the tip on Chobani.
*MOUSE PRINT:
Arm and Hammer took out almost two pounds of kitty litter from Super Scoop but kept the boxes the same size. How many people noticed that we have to wonder? Thanks to WAE for the tip on Super Scoop.
“Value Size” is in need of a legal definition. (kidding).
Chobani is the worst yogurt on the market. I thought their size was 5.3 oz for a really long time, because I don’t even recall them ever being 6 oz. It doesn’t matter really, since you can’t eat the entire thing anyway, it is THAT nasty.
On a completely unrelated note: I had an empty 10oz can of Bustello espresso coffee and an unopened 8.8 oz bag of Goya espresso coffee. Today I opened the bag and poured its contents into the 10 oz can. Weird, but the 10 oz can hardly holds 8.8 oz of coffee and it almost spilled out. Either the bag had more than 8.8 oz or the Bustello can is really not made to hold 10 oz of coffee, even though it has a big sign “Still 10 oz”…
16 ounces = 1 pound
Can producers at least keep 16 oz of meat in a package as the standard? I don’t like downsizing, and I REALLY don’t want to be bothered with buying more packages of meat.
@ Sofonda I believe weight and volume have been confused in your situation. 10 oz weight of one brand of coffee would not necessarily be the same volume as 8 oz weight of another brand, depending on the treatment of the beans, grind, etc.
I also was unaware Chobani was ever bigger than 5.3 ounces. As far as the hotdogs go, there is continuing pressure for prepared foods to have reduced calories and salt… it’s easy to pass off those reductions by making the serving size smaller, but it doesn’t actually reduce the relative cal/sodium.
@ Ed – It’s not possible to see the labels clearly on the ballparks. Was the # of servings the same in the new vs old or did they change it from 8 servings to about 8 servings? Or did they show a reduction in the per serving counts for calories etc.
Edgar replies: You can’t tell from those pictures, but there the same number of hot dogs in each package. So each one is marginally smaller. In other brands, like Nathan’s, the number remained at eight (not 10 like most brands), but each package went from 16 ounces to 14 ounces.
I agree, Sofonda, Chobani is the worst yogurt on the market! It’s not even real Greek yogurt, but regular yogurt made thicker with additives. It tastes like wallpaper paste.
I was totally pissed several years ago when yogurt suddenly went from 8 oz. to 6 oz. and wrote to manufacturers to complain. I got nothing but lame explanations, such as “focus groups preferred smaller sized containers”. Just who are they BS-ing? Why bother eating yogurt at all if the size is going to be that small? Plus, the eliminated the lid so all you have is this flimsy tear off foil which tends to open if you drop it or look at it wrong. Now 5.3 ounces? They can kiss my you know what!
I got even more upset when suddenly Greek yogurt became all the rage, and they eliminated most regular yogurt from the shelves. Now I buy regular plain yogurt in the large sized tub and add fruit to it myself. The supermarket brand is often better than the name brands and I save a lot on it. Plus I get to control the sugar content.
I keep waiting for these companies to say they are doing this to help fight obesity, you know, smaller food sizes so you don’t eat as much…..
What does get hard, with canned foods, is when you make recipies that call for certain sizes, like 16 oz of this bean, etc… but you now have cans that are 10oz, 11oz, 12oz, etc…
1 ounce of meat gone… That means each hot dog get dropped .125 of an ounce.
Most yogurts had been 8 ounces then the drop to 6 then 5.3. Watch out for nutritional info too. I challenge any company to be the first to go back to original size and charge the price it needs to be. What a war that would start.
Nothing wrong with removing the plastic lids from those yogurt containers. They were truly wasteful. I was actually having difficulty finishing 8oz of sugary yogurt, so the 6 oz size works for me, but 5.3oz is ridiculous. Thankfully that size is the new standard size for the revolting Greek yogurt varieties. If regular fruit yogurt gets smaller too, I’ll be disappointed. Stonyfield (which is just a branch of Dannon, if you didn’t know) already has some stupid yogurt pouches that are only 3.5oz of watered down yogurt “for kids.” They cost $1 when on sale, probably about $1.49 retail.
-I just noticed Nalley Chili reduced the sized of their chili from 15 to 14 oz (I wrote them a thank you via the website).
I also noticed that Saregento reduced the of the “tasting” line from 4.00 oz to 3.95 oz…. wow I mean really?
How long can this stupid trend go on?