The Pie Is Getting Smaller.

[tablesaw]

I was at the supermarket this morning, picking up some staples and some sickie supplies for ojouchan. I also decided to grab some snacks I could take to work, for the times when my lunch and my tea isn't enough for the day.

Now, a while ago, candy prices at the supermarket went up a bit, a hike that seemed related to increasing gas prices. A little while later, they raised the prices in our building's vending machines as well, citing the same reasons. As a result, I haven't been buying as many candy bars. I do still keep an eye out for bargains though.

Today, I spotted Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for fifty cents. Which is okay, I guess, but not really something to make me pull out me wallet. However, I noticed that the wrapping looked a little wider, and upon closer inspection, it became clear that each package held three cups instead of the normal two. Enough to make my craving grab a pair on my way to the register.

I imagined that many people had been having problems justifying the price of the candy bars recently. Hershey probably thought that it would be better to start sending out a little bit more chocolate to get people buying the chocolate. It probably did lead to more profits on their side.

But then another aspect of the wrapper made it through my skull: it proclaimed that this package offered "40% more." Now, the old package had two cups, and the new package had three cups. That ought to be a fifty percent increase, right? But no, the wrapper makes it clear that you're getting "2.1 oz at the 1.5 oz price." In the old package, each cup was .75 oz, in the new one, it's .70 oz.

I don't imagine this is a coincidence, and I find it hard to believe that, when Hershey returns to two-cup packaging, the cups will regain the six percent that's been shaved off.

All I can think of is Jon Stewart from a few days ago:

Our economy has shrunk so much, it's no longer economy size: it's fun size. And as candy lovers know, that's the least fun size.

Comments

[platypus]

From your numbers on total package size, that should be 0.75 oz each in the old packaging, 0.70 in the new. Five hundredths of an ounce difference, not half an ounce. (Which changes your original point not at all, but I can't resist a typo. Sorry.)

[tablesaw]

Fixed. (I forgot to shift the decimal back after doing the mental math.)

[devjoe.livejournal.com]

0.75 to 0.70 oz per cup, but still, a sneaky method of downsizing their product by 6%. If I tried to list all the products that have made their packages smaller rather than reduce prices, LJ wouldn't let me post the comment. Coffee has for a long time been 13 ounces or less in the packages that were originally a pound. Ice cream "half gallons" have downsized twice, from 64 oz to 56 oz, and more recently to 48 oz. And candy, with all its unique package sizes, has been doing the downsizing thing for ages.

Apparently it has only been a few years (http://www.mikescandywrappers.com/reesepbsmaller0504.html) since Reese's last downsize from a 1.6 oz package.

[amythyst.livejournal.com]

OK, the "Candy You Ate as a Kid" website=AWESOME. Bookmarked.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Not fixed -- post still says "half an ounce [has] been shaved off". It's a total of a tenth of on ounce missing, 0.05 oz from each cup.

[tablesaw]

Now fixed, using devjoe's 6% figure.

[la-sonnambula.livejournal.com]

Yep, everything is getting the more expensive. Apparently the increase in the cost of rice can be attributed to the increase in gas prices too. In ten years the cost of a 25lb of rice has doubled and it seems the increase is the sharpest this past year.