Food costs are on the rise, but have you noticed how much smaller the bags are?
Times are tight, and no one knows that more than the people who are unemployed, or under-employed. It seems like everything is costing more these days, from gas to basic necessities like food.
As the cost of raw materials have increased, many companies are forced to raise prices. With food companies, they have begun disguising the increase by decreasing the size of their packages.
The New York Times recently ran an article about the shrinking food packaging, and I have to tell you, I was shocked. I have noticed that many products that I buy on a regular basis haven't been lasting as long, but I hadn't actually done any investigation on the matter.
The article mention how boxes of pasta have gone from being sold in 16 ounce boxes to the new 13.25 ounce boxes. Cans of vegetables are now packaged in 13 ounce cans instead of the traditional 16 ounce cans. Even simple things like a box of Saltine cracker have changed to smaller packaging that actually gives you less of the product.
With the crackers, Kraft has introduced a new packaging called “Fresh Stacks”. The design is marketed as a way to keep crackers fresher for longer and make them easier to take along with you. It's a great idea, but what they fail to tell you is that you may pay a little more for the “convenience packaging” and there are actually considerably less crackers in the box.
These companies work with marketing agencies that spin the new packaging as being better for the environment or promoting healthier eating. While it's true that the packaging is better environmentally, and if the product does have less calories, it's because you are buying less of the product.
The problem is that when companies reduce the size of their products during hard economic times, they rarely drop the prices once times get better. It has become the new normal in the world of commerce. For example, many hotels have begun switching to only providing a small number of towels and encouraging guests to re-use their towels and only use the maid service every other day. The reason given is to avoid wasting resources and helping the hotel be a little greener.
I, personally, try to be as green as possible. I don't have anything against the environment, but I really dislike having to pay the same amount for less service. If anything, the hotels are taking their cost saving measure to the extreme. One hotel I staying at recently even had a shampoo and body wash dispenser in the shower. It was marketing as saving on plastic packaging. I wondered if I was the only person who thought that it was a little unsanitary to use the same body wash and shampoo as the last guest did, and the thought that some previous guest could have put something into the containers really made me cringe. It's not that I am have germ-phobia, I just don't want to share soap with random strangers.
Have you noticed these types of cost saving measures? Have you had a situation where the products you buy often were much smaller than previously? Let me know in the comments.
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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for RetailGigsBlog. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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