Retail

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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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Dish Network: 3 Months Free (But Not the Ones You Think)

Disn NetworkConsumers are used to seeing offers of a number of free or discounted months of service when they switch cable companies. So it is not unusual that Dish Network, a satellite television provider, is offering three free months of service as an inducement to choose their company.

In the graphic, there is some virtually unreadable type.

*MOUSE PRINT: It says “with 24 month commitment”. Okay, so the company requires a two year contract, which certainly is uncommon in the conventional cable television industry. It sounds more like a cell contract than a cable TV contract, but if that is the way they choose to operate, that is their decision.

Only when you dig deeper into their website, however, do you learn the additional terms of the three months free offer.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Dish Network

So if you assumed your first three months of service would be free, you assumed wrong. The free months are spread throughout your two year contract.

Elsewhere on the website you will learn there are a dizzing number of options and additional fees, so it is difficult to tell how much your bill will really total on a monthly basis. But, in a rare demonstration of the company’s ability to be candid when it chooses to, they provide a sample bill  which indicates you will be charged for two months of service on your first bill, not just one (and a variety of other oddball fees, as one commenter notes below).

Thanks to Mouse Print* reader Rob for pointing out the unusual staggering of the free months bonus. If you find examples of surprising fine print, please send them along to edgar(at symbol)mouseprint.org .