How To Hide Inflation From Consumers 101

Watchout! Supermarket "Short-Sizing" Gives You Less For Same Price!

Last Update: 5/13/08

Common in manufacturing to alter the quantity of a package's content in an effort to keep costs down. (NBC News) From NBC News:

With fuel and delivery costs rising, food manufacturers are faced with raising their prices or giving you less and it seems that less is the growing trend.

It's a trend that's likely to continue.

Pat Locurto, owner of Pat's Meat Farms in farmingdale listens to his customers but realizes this is just the beginning.

"A lot of packaging is getting smaller for the same price. The weights are getting changed, a lot of people don't notice but a lot of people do and they're mumbling and grumbling, they think its us. but its not us, its the company," said Locurto.

It's a practice known as short-sizing. Common in manufacturing to alter the quantity of a package's content in an effort to keep costs down.

Tod Marks of Consumer Reports says "Years ago, we saw coffee. remember the can of coffee, one pound 15 ounces 11.5 ounces, some are down to 10 now for your pound of coffee, then it started spreading.

Now, take ice cream.

"We've gone from a half gallon to 1.75 to now 1.5 quarts, that's a tremendous short sizing of a package, same time price is rising," Tod Marks said.

We found Eddy's new 1.5 quart size side-by-side with its predecessor, the 1.75 quart size, on a store shelf in Melville, and we were charged the same price for both.

Eddy's told us what we found was the old inventory still for sale.

Another good example right now can be found in breakfast cereals.

Roger Bogstead the Nassau County Consumer Affairs Commissioner said "We're seeing it more and more given the high cost of flour and wheat. Consumers are trying to get the best bargain they can and the manufacturer's don't want the consumers to know that they're raising the prices."

If you take a look at these two types of cereal found in supermarkets by Nassau County Consumer Affairs' inspectors. Both brands are Stop & Shop, one is the frosted shredded wheat cereal. Same size box, one is 19 ounces, the other 18 ounces.

And then there's Cocoa Magic cereal. Roger Bogstead said "Eighteen ounces to almost two ounces less."

And it's not just edible items. Inspectors picked a three-pack of Irish Spring and Dial soaps and found they had been short-sized too.

And in a similar vein, inspectors came across two different sizes of act anti-cavity mouthwash and did the math the small version says, use once a day. The larger version says, use twice a day.

Roger Bogstead says "to use this bigger mouthwash as directed, costs you 15 cents a day. When you use the smaller one as directed it costs you 10 cents a day. Plus the active ingredient in the small one is much higher than the bigger one."

The makers of Act mouthwash explained their fluoride dosage as an FDA regulation, saying they are restricted to a certain quantity of fluoride in the larger size bottles.

Now the manufacturers of the products we mentioned and all pointed to the high cost of fuel as the impetus for the short-sizing of their products, apparently they believe short sizing is easier for consumers to digest the dramatic price increases.
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