The Great 'Shrinking Food' Hunt

Edwardia

In The Men Who Made Us Fat, some Doctor working for the government years ago said that the government back then wanted to get manufacturers to reduce the size of confectionery for the good of the public health.

However, it seems to me, unless they were allowed to keep the price the same to keep their profit margins, why would a manufacturer agree ?

jenniewb

Edwardia wrote: »

In The Men Who Made Us Fat, some Doctor working for the government years ago said that the government back then wanted to get manufacturers to reduce the size of confectionery for the good of the public health.

However, it seems to me, unless they were allowed to keep the price the same to keep their profit margins, why would a manufacturer agree ?

I agree with the reduction of sizes in some foods, but not all. Sliced meat need to be reduced in size? Really? In the past few years sizes have reduced from around 125g down to 85g and the price has not changed. Not happy! Do people seriously put the entire pack in one sandwich?? (well, they may do now as a result of the reduced size but doubt they used to before!)

If they are going to reduce prices, it would only be fair for prices to drop in accordance of this, I know inflation has increased costs for some items but in many cases gram for gram or ml for ml prices have risen way more then average!

Manufacturers look more and more greedy from where I'm sitting.

Middy

Edwardia wrote: »

In The Men Who Made Us Fat, some Doctor working for the government years ago said that the government back then wanted to get manufacturers to reduce the size of confectionery for the good of the public health.

However, it seems to me, unless they were allowed to keep the price the same to keep their profit margins, why would a manufacturer agree ?

I read in the copy of The Grocer that within the next couple of years, chocolate bars got to have a maximum of 250 calories due to EU ruling. I saw one colleague munching on one yesterday and noticed that the bar contained 277 calories and that has to be reduced by over 10% to fit the requirements.

terra_ferma

Middy wrote: »

I read in the copy of The Grocer that within the next couple of years, chocolate bars got to have a maximum of 250 calories due to EU ruling. I saw one colleague munching on one yesterday and noticed that the bar contained 277 calories and that has to be reduced by over 10% to fit the requirements.

Personally I would not mind if they changed the size, as long as they changed pricing accordingly.
Every single time I see a change in packaging I know what to expect:
smaller=cheaper packet price, but more expensive unit price
bigger=more expensive packet price and unit price.
same size or unit price, new formula etc=product more diluted (e.g. handwash), or worse quality, or smaller units (e.g. toilet paper)

they change packaging just to hide the price increase, so that you can't compare it easily.

redfragglebiker

This has probably already been mentioned but Catherdral City cheese have been very sneaky about it. I believe it used to be 420g and is now 350g. They have kept the block the same height and length and just reduced the width so it looks like the same size block on the shelf! It took me a while to realise why my cheese wasn't lasting as long... I blamed the OH and thought he'd developed a secret cheese habit!

Brockyman

Not a food item but Liquid Lawn Feed at Poundland has just gone up in price by 400% !!!! :mad:
It used to be £1 for 1 Litre of 15-3-3 lawn feed.
It is now £1 for 500ml of 7.5-1.5-1.5.
So not only do you only get half as much but it is only half the strength so you have to use twice as much!!

However because it is still £1 they will go on claiming that they haven't put their prices up since they first opened all those years back, lol.

JAG

Kelloggs Special K redesigned their packaging and lowered contents by 15% (375g to 320g) but kept the same price.

juno

Kit kats used to come in multipacks of 16, but they're now 14 for the same price

Taadaa

How have l not noticed these reductions?? There's me having a go at the Taadaa brood for using half the pack of ham for a few sandwiches!

Edwardia

Add Birds Eye Original Beef Burgers to the pile.. OH bought them as although 77% beef 13% onion they don't have additives. I looked at the two on my plate, which were smaller than a Digestive biscuit and they've definitely shrunk since I was a kid.