Downsizing / Shrinkflation

Here are products that have shrunken in size as a sneaky way for manufacturers to pass on a hidden price increase.

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Skimpy Peanut Butter — Part 2

The “regular” size jar of peanut butter has been 18 ounces for decades. But if you haven’t checked the label of Skippy recently, you are in for a surprise. 

*MOUSE PRINT:  Unilever removed 3 tablespoons-worth from every jar — that’s 1.7 ounces.

Skippy

How did they do it given that the jars appear to be virtually the same height and circumference?  They hollowed out the bottom more, making an even deeper impression in the plastic — close to half an inch.

Skippy ruler

Mouse Print* asked the company why they downsized the product and did nothing to call the consumer’s attention to that fact. They responded:

Unilever has always taken great pride in offering the highest quality products at reasonable and fair prices. Food inflation is only one element of a general rise in commodity costs – such as oil prices. It is an industry issue that is impacting all companies in the food, beverage and retail sector. Manufacturing and transportation costs also have increased significantly with the surge in fuel oil prices. Like other companies, Unilever is working to mitigate the impact of these rising commodity costs through hedging, product reformulation and cost savings programs. We have chosen to reduce package sizes as one of our responses to these dramatic input cost increases.

Note that they never answered the second part of the question.

Even if shoppers have not yet noticed Skippy’s  reduction in net weight, competitors have.  Look how large the makers of Jif are promoting the fact that their jar is still 18 ounces:

Jif

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Holy Mackerel, StarKist Downsizes Tuna

Something is fishy at StarKist. In a move that will likely ripple through the entire tuna industry, the company has just downsized their tuna cans.

*MOUSE PRINT:

A customer service representative for StarKist explained that tuna prices have reached an all-time high, and coupled with the increased cost of transportation and other ingredients, they had to make a change. Instead of increasing the price, she said, they decreased the can size.

Putting an environmental spin on the downsizing, the company said it will save two million gallons of water a year, while only taking out two teaspoons of tuna from each can.

Tuna has a long history of being downsized. Once upon a time, tuna came in 7 ounce cans (at least solid white did). Then, cans were downsized to 6.5 oz., then 6-1/8 oz., and finally to 6 oz. maybe a decade ago. All the while, what had originally consisted of solid pieces of chunk light tuna fish, became a mush of too little fish and too much ocean.

[Note to readers: Because we are seeing more and more of these sneaky, backdoor price increases, Mouse Print* will only bring you news like this when a major product category is downsized.]

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Snap, Crackle, Poof: Kellogg’s Downsizes

Joining the ranks of products being downsized is an array of Kellogg’s cereals, including Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Fruit Loops, Cocoa Krispies, and others.

Apple Jacks

*MOUSE PRINT: Though the boxes look identical head-on, the new box of Apple Jacks has two cups less of cereal.

How did they do it? The new boxes are narrower:

Apple Jacks side

The new version will also be 10 calories slimmer to your waist line. High fructose corn syrup was replaced with more apple juice concentrate (reducing sugar), and salt was also decreased.

Both boxes cost $3.49 during the week of July 6. That works out to 31.7 cents an ounce for the old larger box, and 40.1 cents an ounce for the new smaller one. That is a 26.4% price increase. Had the product been kept the same size, its new retail price would have climbed to $4.41.

Why did Kellogg’s downsize?  The company was refreshingly candid in their response:

“This package change is considered a price increase, in that box size is smaller. The reason for the price increase is the rising costs of ingredients and transportation. “

Consumers would clearly notice a price increase of almost a dollar, but the subtle change in packaging may go unnoticed. And even if shoppers did realize they were getting 2.3 ounces less in the box, they would not likely equate that with a nearly one dollar price hike.