Comments on: The Incredible Shrinking Peanut Butter Jar

By: anonymous commenter

anonymous commenter — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:47:53 +0000

I’m convinced fast food places are doing this too. The burgers get smaller and the prices stay the same (or go up).

By: Brammi

Brammi — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:03:38 +0000

I like to pretend that there’s fewer Cheetos to a package, and that I’m saving a whopping 100 calories per snarfed-in-a-moment-of-weakness bag.

Please don’t ask me to prove this. Let me live out my little fantasy.

(I AM peeved that cans of tuna look mysteriously under-filled, however. And more “tuna-looking”. It’s much more difficult to make into tuna sammiches with their “fresh-looking chunks” as opposed to “pre-cooked fish mush”. BRING BACK THE MUSH!)

By: Scott-O

Scott-O — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:25:53 +0000

Zo- how are the smaller water bottles “more eco friendly” when you are using more plastic to bottle up a gallon of water. For example, a single one gallon bottle of water would use less packaging (i.e. plastic) than would eight, 16 ounce bottles of water. I don’t see how this is “more eco-friendly” unless you are talking of the gas savings I would have by lugging around a thinner wallet.

By: Sofar

Sofar — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:54:04 +0000

I’d rather just pay more.

By: DOJ

DOJ — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:15:55 +0000

As long as the weight or volume printed on the label is accurate, this kind of thing doesn’t bother me too much.
But changing the serving size on the nutrition label doesn’t change the serving size people eat. So it bothers me when companies change it just to appear lo-fat/lo-cal without any reduction in their customers fat/calorie intake.

By: earl

earl — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:41:28 +0000

During the 1960′s, if memory serves, the 1 pound can of coffee turned into 13 oz.(A “pound” of decaf is 11.5 oz.) Shortly thereafter a quart jar of spaghetti sauce became 30 oz.,then 28 oz., and now its only 26 oz. Lately this trend has turned into an epidemic.

By: Zo

Zo — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:38:58 +0000

Speaking of packaging…THAT’S really the reason zephyrhills water uses less plastic and makes their bottles smaller, claiming that they’re more “eco-friendly”. I mean, they are, but they’re just using that as an excuse to spend less.

By: seekshelter

seekshelter — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:10:25 +0000

and… if anyone is actually coming to this site for ‘late breaking news’ is on the wrong site… c’mon.. a few posts above this is the history or route 66…

By: seekshelter

seekshelter — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:08:12 +0000

anyone know anything about hotpockets? a long time ago, they started putting stuff on the package about them containing ‘more filling’ or whatever… but the product size remained the same…it still seemed like the same amount of bread…hmmmmm

By: Average Jane

Average Jane — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:53:50 +0000

And that’s part of the reason I make my own peanut butter!

By: mallory

mallory — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:14:20 +0000

At first this made me sort of mad, but when I thought about it, I’d rather have the same quality product and just less of it than have Jif or Skippy or whoever use ingredients that will alter the product.

By: AJ

AJ — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:24:36 +0000

Ignore nihil’s whine. Last I checked, there wasn’t an approved reading list to gain entry to any blog. I stopped reading Consumerist when I decided it was a little too much like John Stossel’s version of reporting.

By: Gauldar

Gauldar — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:46:17 +0000

I would rather then use smaller jars then make it more difficult for me to get the last of the peanut butter out of the bottom.

By: unohav_1

unohav_1 — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:45:26 +0000

The biggest problem I have with all of this is the amount of recipes out there that call for a “can of this” or “package of that” after at least 10 years of shrinking, and a trend that’s likely to continue indefinitely, at some point the recipes will be all but useless the volumes will be off so much.

I caught Charmin at the time they shrank their toilet paper. They weren’t too sneaky about it at all. Hacked off nearly a quarter inch. There were still larger packages on the shelves next to the shorter ones. Man I’d prefer they shorten the sheets amount than the actual sheet size this forces you to use more. A double cheat! Grrr…

By: JeffB

JeffB — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:57:44 +0000

Pretty soon we won’t need packaging: you can just go to the store and buy a spoonful (bring your own spoon!) for the same price as you used to pay for 18 oz.

By: SenorMysterioso

SenorMysterioso — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:40:56 +0000

i agree with noahstrickland, mmmmmmmmmm

By: edvard

edvard — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:50:05 +0000

There’s more label fine-print shenanigans at mouseprint.org

I also noticed the half-gallon of ice cream I bought yesterday was shy a few ounces.
Grr…

By: noahstrickland

noahstrickland — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:49:46 +0000

mmmmmmmmmmm…………peanut butter…..mmmmmmmmmmmm

By: nihil

nihil — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:48:17 +0000

Oh great now the “Grocery Shrink Ray” blog virus has hit Neatorama too. Shrinking packaging has been the topic on Consumerist for MONTHS now. This isn’t “new” news by any means.

By: AJ

AJ — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:03:11 +0000

Heh, I wrote about this. Skippy is smaller, but Jif is still at 18 ounces and the price hasn’t gone up anymore than its competition.

http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2008/09/foodprices.html

It pays to compare volume labels now. At one store, I’m almost certain they’re exploiting price jumps by hiking them higher than needed. Case in point, a taco sauce bottle that was 72 cents a year ago jumped to 98 cents in a few months, then 1.42 last month, then a week later to a “sale” price of 1.78. People flat out stopped buying it at 1.78, then 2 weeks later it is back down to 1.42. Me? I stockpiled at 72 cents and am still happy. It has a long shelf life.

By: sigh

sigh — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:52:09 +0000

OMG! We Americans might have to eat a bit less! Noooooo!

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:39:40 +0000

This is really the only way they can do it, people are so insanely price sensitive.

By: MENLOHEAVYWEIGHT

MENLOHEAVYWEIGHT — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:21:17 +0000

scandalous, I am going to boycott peanutbutter until they put the old jars back in play, yup from now on nothing but jelly snadwiches for me.

By: Paul in Boca

Paul in Boca — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:55:39 +0000

How about the “sold by weight, not volume”, so when you open the box it’s only 2/3 full.

By: John Giotta

John Giotta — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:53:43 +0000

Can’t this be viewed as false advertising? Psychologically, they know that consumers don’t read fine print. I’d rather see honest salesmanship rather than dishonest.

By: Sannhp

Sannhp — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:50:13 +0000

That is pretty sneaky. It’s like the Poland Spring water jugs. They have a false bottom that goes so deep you can almost unscrew the cap from it.

By: HemlockEcho

HemlockEcho — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:35:33 +0000

TheConsumerist has been following this "Grocery Shrink Ray" for a while. They've got a good gallery and plenty of examples.

By: daileb

daileb — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:17:26 +0000

“Price per unit” is my budget’s friend. Always has been. I first noticed this with coffee several years ago.

By: Scott-O

Scott-O — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:14:25 +0000

Check out the Breyer’s ice cream containers too. I have also seen a few items that have reduced the serving size so that we can get more servings out of a bag of chips in a “Christ with loaves and fishes” kind of way. The good news is the American servings are coming down to the rest of the world’s serving size. Another potential good thing out of this mess is the potential for a reduction in obesity. If you can’t afford the food, ten you won’t eat it. Then again, McDonald’s happy meal sales are up close to 10% so maybe we will just get fatter. This will be interesting.

By: Notorious M.O.L.

Notorious M.O.L. — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:59:56 +0000

I noticed cups of yogurt have gotten a LOT smaller since the summer. Where I shop the price has gone down slightly, but it’s still pretty close to what it was before the downsize.

By: Rocky Rook

Rocky Rook — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:31:49 +0000

My brother-in-law works for Kimberly-Clark and he was telling us how the TP industry makes “more” TP by reducing the plys or something similiar so they can save money. Then they hype it up and up the sale price.

By: ted

ted — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:24:07 +0000

They always put the price per unit on items in the stores around here. A little comparison does do wonders.

By: darlzwik

darlzwik — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:34:43 +0000

Victory peanut butter!

By: CelticCatEyes

CelticCatEyes — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:32:23 +0000

That is a clever peanut-butter saving technique! But truthfully, I’ve noticed products getting smaller and have started calculating price-per-unit when it is not provided. What I’ve also learned is that bulk doesn’t always mean cheaper! Check with your calculator before purchasing the bigger package.

By: Sniperman

Sniperman — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:27:59 +0000

funny how you used to see containers tell you that they “now have 15% more!”, but now with less product they don’t feel we care enough for them to show that.