Last updated on July 26th, 2018 at 12:02 pm
The US Government seems to think we’re stupid – or so I have come to realize… they’re telling us that inflation is a mere 3.2%
So while you consider that little gem, I have some observations about grocery items, which might give you some pause for thought…
Americans’ grocery basket hauls are shrinking – only not as fast as their wallets – food manufacturers are reducing sizes of their products as a way of disguising price hikes… have you noticed? Many have… and a quick google for “food sizes shrinking prices stay the same”
Here is a recent article I found which has some pretty good examples of every day items you might put into your basket…
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/04/04/u-s-companies-shrink-packages-as-food-prices-rise/
Did you know that back in 2008, Kellogg Cereal cut 2.4oz from their boxes? No? I am not surprises, the box didn’t change size…
Maybe you noticed your favorite candy bar get smaller – I did… the US public does notice these things – although not all do…
Tropicana reworked their packaging – their 96oz was reduced to 89oz and their 64oz shrunk to 59oz – a size still lovingly referred to as a “half-gallon carton” in the linked article. Of course the company said they needed to make the bottle optimal for their new lid – do you buy this pile of bologna?!?
Haagen-Dazs shrunk their “pint” sized container, and “cleverly kept the top the same size, so it looks identical from above, but tapers dramatically in the middle.” – this is a quote from the article I posted a link to above… but it raises a question to me… am I the only one to think that it isn’t “clever”? It’s what I call “sneaky”!!
Cans of Tuna are also on the shrinking line … from 6oz to 5oz in many cases – Chicken of the Sea being a perfect example.
Frito-Lay shrank packages from 12.5% to 20% – even their smaller bags reduced by a quarter of an ounce – a single serving size took that 0.25oz hit.
The list goes on and on… and it’s a seemingly tricky way that the major food corporations are “hiding” what in some cases are some substantial price-hikes – a reduction in size of the product while maintaining the same price of same product is a stealthier way of increasing prices, and because you average consumer doesn’t really have the common math skills, they often mis-calculate the true cost increase..
Had you noticed – that most frozen food packages (vegetables mainly – a mainstay of many American households dinner tables ) – your frozen peas and corn, or broccoli and other frozen veg. pretty much all reduced in size from 16oz to 12oz in the last year or so… OK – a 25% reduction in size – it’s quite significant, no?
Had you taken the time to do a quick cost per ounce calculation, you would have noticed that a $1.50 bag of peas was previously $0.09 per oz – but with the new sizes, that cost jumped to $0.13 per oz… yes, it’s a $0.03 cent per oz increase… or – a whopping 33.3333% increase in cost per ounce…does anyone else think this is significant??
These 1lb to 12oz decreases and 33.33% price hikes are perhaps some of the more extreme – (I noticed this same size change from Birds Eye, Green Giant and the store’s own branded frozen veg), but don’t be fooled by what you might think is a relatively small decrease in size, the cost per ounce or per lb has increased significantly more than what you might think a relatively small decrease in package size might result in….. so with these type of hidden price-hikes across the board, how is it we’re being fed the line that we have 3.2% inflation??? Something just doesn’t add up…
Your thoughts are welcomes via facebook ladies and gentlemen??