Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Smaller Sizes Are Invading our Shelves

I noticed awhile ago that Dove bars have mysteriously lost one of the bars from the package. Where once, your ducats would have bought you four bars, the same price now only nets you three, count'em three, bars. That's a 25% drop! It's basically a trick. They're assuming that a large price increase will cause a larger drop in sales than the same price and simply putting less inside the bottle. I don't like it, but we're in an extended economic downturn, while at the same time, many raw materials on which these manufacturers rely are becoming more expensive.

GOOD Magazine and Consumer Reports hooked up and produced a small infographic showing that this event is spreading across the entirety of the supermarket. Again, I understand that inflation happens and that, eventually, the price has to increase, but I don't like it when companies try to trick me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

FOR REAL!

did you know hersheys took out the chocolate in some of their candies? in their place they put in some "chocolate flavored" substance. they obviously didnt do that to the chocolate bars but to things like kissables. it's ridiculous.

cool blog.

sarah.

Aaron Martin-Colby said...

Oh wow.

I don't find that too surprising. That might have less to do with the current price of chocolate and more to do with the possible future price. Chocolate prices have been rising at a scary rate over the past year and a half, and companies that rely so heavily on it are obviously under pressure.

Still, it doesn't help their image much. A company that's seen as "discount" chocolate really wants to avoid getting any more "discount." Lest they become Palmer... yeck.