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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Bucking the Trend, This Company Upsized its Products

Since Mouse Print* began in 2006, we have featured product after product that has been downsized. Manufacturers remove an ounce here and there, and for paper products, they shave off fractions of an inch in width or length, or reduce the number of sheets provided.

Now comes Ken’s Steak House salad dressing. Looking at the picture on the left, the bottle on the left appears bigger than the one on the right, and one might conclude that they too have just downsized. Surprise, the opposite is true.

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Ken’s actually added an ounce of dressing to their traditional eight ounce bottle when they made the switch from glass to plastic bottles. This was a deliberate move by this family-run company to buck the downsizing trend.

Too bad they missed the opportunity to tout the fact on the bottle that they are now giving the consumer more at the same old price. (They had limited space, and couldn’t figure out how to best communicate that fact according to a spokesperson for the company.) In the comments below, feel free to offer your suggestions.

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Paper Products Downsized

With higher prices for oil and raw materials, paper products companies are downsizing their products, again. Here are two more examples:

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Going from 216 to 200 tissues per box is a reduction of almost seven and half percent. The clever folks at P&G don’t put the count anywhere but on the perforated strip that you remove when opening the box, so you have no way of double-checking from purchase to purchase how many tissues were in your last box. (Thanks to Rodney G. for the tip about Puffs.)

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While it is true that no one is likely to miss that extra 1/8th of an inch, the maker of Dixie plates must have thought the savings were significant enough to invest money in the retooling and repackaging. One-eight of an inch times millions of plates adds up.

It is curious, however, that while the plates’ diameter in inches has shrunk, the diameter in centimeters appears to have increased from 21-cm to 21.5-cm. Whoever said the metric system made more sense?

Few people are likely to have caught these changes because they were done so inconspicuously.

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More Products Downsized

Earlier this year, Tropicana downsized it half gallons of orange juice. They went from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, but the container appeared to remain the same size.

Just last month, Tropicana’s big competitor, Florida’s Natural followed suit:

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The package is a barely noticeable 1/4″ shorter, but contains five ounces less than previously.

When asked by Mouse Print* why their product was downsized, the company responded:

“As I hope you are aware, our major competitors had all previously made the switch. Although we had tried to maintain the 64 ounce size, we were at a big cost disadvantage. Consumers still bought the lower ounce cartons of our competitors, so to remain viable in the juice business, we had to follow suit.

As a company owned by farmers, we understand offering value to our customers. We have no control over the retail price supermarkets charge for our product. With that in mind, we will offer our 59 ounce features at a lower promotional cost, compared to the features usually run on the 64 ounce product.”

Another item that was downsized and discovered earlier in the year was Ivory Dishwashing Liquid.

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When asked why the change, P&G responded:

” I’m sorry to hear that you have noticed the downsize in our bottles of Ivory Dish Soap. In the Fall of 2009, Ivory downsized our bottles because our raw materials went up and instead of charging more to the stores to handle our products we changed the size of the bottles. “

Thanks to Paul P. for the photo. Incidentally, he says the price stayed the same at about $2.42.


Cheryl from Massachusetts submitted this picture of Pastene Wine Vinegar which was downsized from a full quart to just 25.4 ounces, but the new bottle was taller than the old one. She poured the new contents into the old bottle to demonstrate just how much vinegar was actually removed.

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Lastly, Jerri Q. was dismayed to find her Hill Bros. coffee had been substantially downsized, while the price stayed the same.

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Thanks to all the contributors who found these examples of downsized products.  As we always say, downsizing is a sneaky way to pass on a price increase.