Alpen - sneaky package sizing

esuhl

Alpen (the breakfast cereal) was recently reduced at our local supermarket - £2.00 instead of £2.99. They had sold out of "normal" Alpen, so I thought I'd stock up with the "no added sugar" variety instead.

It was only later that I realised that the box seemed a bit thinner than usual... and it was! You get 750g in the normal boxes, but just 560g in the "sugar free" variety! :mad:

That's less than 75% of the bigger box! For the same price! Just because they don't put in any sugar!!! Argh! I was robbed!

Caroline73_2

Does it state the weight on the boxes?

Jennjenn

well it states it clearly on the front. Just read.

DCFC79

Jennjenn wrote: »

well it states it clearly on the front. Just read.

theres always 1, you know being nice just doesnt apply to forum newbies like yourself but all members

fluffnutter

What they do is add the sugar first, then take it all out. This additional manufacturing process means that the sugar free is more expensive.

fluffnutter

Out of interest is it unsweetened, or has the sugar simply been replaced by aspartame or similar? Artificial sweeteners taste minging. *puke*

SandC

I make a point of reading everything because they are sneaky like that. Oatsosimple plain variety has 12 sachets in the box. The flavoured ones have 10. And they are still more expensive. Tsk.

antrobus

esuhl wrote: »

Alpen (the breakfast cereal) was recently reduced at our local supermarket - £2.00 instead of £2.99. They had sold out of "normal" Alpen, so I thought I'd stock up with the "no added sugar" variety instead.

It was only later that I realised that the box seemed a bit thinner than usual... and it was! You get 750g in the normal boxes, but just 560g in the "sugar free" variety! :mad:

That's less than 75% of the bigger box! For the same price! Just because they don't put in any sugar!!! Argh! I was robbed!

Alpen do the same thing with their cereal bars. The 'ordinary' bars come in a packet containing 5 x 29g bars, the 'light' bars come in a packet containing 5 x 21g bars. Exact same price though, making the light version some 38% more expensive - whilst (of course) much of the headline calorie reduction comes from the fact that they are simply smaller bars.

stephen77

sugar is probably cheaper to add then putting more raison or oats back in.

how does the ingredient dec compare?

The standard muslie may sell much better as well so economies of scale come in.
Some super market may only stock the full sugar version which will help the above.

esuhl

fluffnutter wrote: »

Out of interest is it unsweetened, or has the sugar simply been replaced by aspartame or similar? Artificial sweeteners taste minging. *puke*

No - the ingredients are identical (with a very slight variation in proportions). The sugar free variety is more-or-less the same but without any sugar! Surely they wouldn't even need to re-tool/modify the production machinery - just turn off the sugar inlet and feed the machine with blue boxes instead of red ones!

I wouldn't mind so much if the boxes looked obviously smaller, but they're the same width and height so they look identical on the supermarket shelf - you're less likely to notice the difference in thickness.

Bah! It's trivial really - I'm just annoyed that I got caught out by this!

fozmcfc

You could take 5 mins, just drop them an email and ask them why the sugar free variety is smaller and yet costs more.

See what justification they have.

EDIT.....Why not, I have asked them the question via the form on the Weetabix company website "Why is it that the no added sugar Alpen comes in a smaller box but cost more then regular Alpen?
It costs more in every shop you buy it, so it is clear that shops are not responsible for it costing the consumer more."