Retail

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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”.

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Here We Downsize Again – Part 1 (2012)

In the never ending cycle of products periodically shrinking inconspicuously in size rather than directly going up in price, we found some doozies.

Paper towels often are downsized, and Bounty is no exception:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Bounty Select-a-Size went from 121 sheets on a roll down to 111. But, the new package seems to say that you are getting 33% more sheets. How in the world is that possible?

*MOUSE PRINT:

The fine print says the comparison is not with the prior version of this product as you would expect, but rather with a “regular” roll, whatever that size really is. If you think about, it is outrageous that P&G would put a 33% more sheets claim on a package that was actually just downsized in the number of sheets.

Last fall, peanut butter prices went through the roof. What got less publicity was the fact that nuts themselves went up in price too. In the case of Planters nuts, consumers experienced both a direct price increase as well as a downsizing.

*MOUSE PRINT:

As always, manufacturers never call your attention to the fact that they have downsized the product, so you have to become net-weight-conscious in order to catch them playing this sneaky game.

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Fruit Roll-ups: Their “Strawberry” is Really…

Decades ago, General Mills introduced us to Fruit Roll-ups, a supposedly healthy snack “made with real fruit.” Indeed, below is a picture of an older box of strawberry Fruit Roll-ups, with the claims that it is “made from real fruit” and that it is “naturally flavored.”

Well, it seems that at least one consumer actually read the ingredients statement and was surprised by what she found.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Annie Lam was shocked to find that the strawberry snack she bought not only had no strawberries in it, it was actually made with pears, and a bunch of other additives and chemicals. And unlike most consumers who would shrug off this afront, she filed a class action lawsuit against the company.

General Mills asked that the suit be dismissed, but the judge ruled last week that it could go forward because:

“Reasonable consumers might be misled by packaging that claimed the snacks are ‘made with real fruit,’ and would not read the fine print.” — U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti