4 January 2011
Haagen-Dasz has shrunk its container size from 16 to 14 ounces, the price remained the same
Blaming everything from high oil prices to low temperatures, US manufacturers are shrinking product sizes but not cutting prices, which amounts to a sneaky price hike, a report released Tuesday said.
Popular products like Tropicana orange juice, Ivory dishwashing soap and Kraft American cheese slices "are all playing the shrinking package game, and manufacturers are attributing it to rising costs for ingredients and energy," Consumer Reports said. When Consumer Reports researchers asked manufacturers why they have downsized some products, they blamed everything from pricier raw materials to last winter's freeze in Florida, which resulting in smaller cartons of orange juice.
Heinz sauce unit Classico said it has cut the amount of pesto sold in glass jars from 10 ounces (283 grams) to 8.1 ounces (230 grams), because of rising fuel prices. Pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream are no longer pints, following a weight loss diet that saw them fall from 16 to 14 ounces because of higher "ingredient and facility costs."
The surreptitious price hikes are nothing new: in 2008, amid skyrocketing prices for oil which is used to make plastic, run many a production facility and transport finished products to supermarkets, Americans noticed that their jars of mayonnaise, tubs of margarine and jugs of juice were shrinking. They also notice, then as now, that prices were staying the same.
This year, with the price of gasoline is at a historic high for the time of year of more than three dollars per gallon, experts are warning US consumers to expect more package-shrinkage as manufacturers try to mask increases in raw materials' and fuel costs by fiddling with product sizes. "Higher commodity and fuel costs are expected to result in a spike in food prices by as much as three percent in 2011," said Consumer Reports senior editor Tod Marks.
But because consumers are "more conscious of price than they are of package size or net weight of contents," manufacturers are likely to downsize products rather than increase prices, said Edgar Dworsky, editor of the Mouseprint.org consumer advocacy website.
Source: Breitbart.
Add your comment
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
