Food/Groceries

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Capri Sun Tropical Punch: All Natural*

Capri Sun FrontSummer is a great time for drinking a refreshing fruit punch. This one, CapriSun “All Natural” Tropical Punch, looks particularly good because the front of the package shows pineapple, orange, bananas and strawberries. The back of the box shows additional fruit: apple, pear, raspberry, cherries, grapes, and lemon. With all that fruit and being “all natural”, this drink is bound to be both nutritious and delicious.

 *MOUSE PRINT: Surprisingly, the ingredients listing indicates that this punch only contains two fruit juices. “INGREDIENTS: water, high fructose corn syrup, pear and pineapple juice concentrates, citric acid, natural flavor.”

capri sun ingredients

The label also reveals that the product only contains “10% fruit juice” and is a “tropical punch flavored juice drink blend.” (It is never a good sign when a product is labeled “juice drink.” And with all that natural water and natural sugar syrup there is hardly room for juice anyway.)

So, where’s the banana, orange, strawberry, raspberry, grape, cherry, apple and lemon that are pictured on the box? Kraft, the maker of this product, responded to an email inquiring as to what specific fruit extracts were contained in this product under the term “natural flavor” by saying the “fruits contained in Tropical Punch … orange, strawberry, banana, pear and pineapple.” 

So maybe the company just forgot to include the raspberry, grape, cherry, apple and lemon pictured on the box?

[Note: the packaging shown is not the current version of this product.]

 

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Here We Downsize Again – Part 2 (2012)

As prices for raw ingredients go up, package sizes go down. Here are a few of the latest examples of products which have been downsized.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Maxwell House

The really big container went from 34.5 ounces (270 cups) down to 30.6 ounces (240 cups) — a loss of 30 cups-worth per container. Thanks to Mouse Print* reader Karl K. for the tip.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Betty Crocker

Betty Crocker has downsized many of their cake mixes from the familiar 18.25 ounces to only 15.25 ounces. Funny thing, however, the package still says it makes two eight-inch rounds, but the nutrition label says there are only 10 servings in the new package rather than the old 12. Thanks to Terry for the lead on Betty Crocker.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Nathan's

Old reliable Nathan’s, the best-tasting frankfurter you can buy (says MrConsumer), still gives you eight “bigger than a bun” hot dogs in a package, but each one has gotten skinnier. The pound package is now just 14 ounces.

As with most cases of downsized products, you are paying the same price, but getting less. That is a sneaky way to essentially raise prices.

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Quiznos: Where’s the Lobster?

A TV commercial from Quiznos caught MrConsumer’s attention a couple of weeks ago. They were promoting a lobster sandwich, but the lobster looked funny. The pieces were uniform in shape, and looked more like tater tots than lobster pieces.

A second viewing of the commercial and freezing it explained all.

*MOUSE PRINT:

lobster sandwich

There is only 51% lobster in the fish portion of the sandwich. But to their credit, they did not call it “lobster sandwich” but lobster and seafood sandwich. And the only way that “lobster” could come first in the name is if the sandwich had (slightly) more lobster than “seafood”.