Food Reduction

[Soontir C'boath]

What items of food have you noticed decreased in weight/size?

I know Nathan's hot dogs eight pack went from 16 to 14, and then now to 12 ounces. A can of tuna (Chicken of the Sea) is 4 ounces instead of 5. Curious to know what else has been reduced.

[The Romulan Republic]

I haven't measured them to prove it, but I've noticed that items purchased at Starbuck's (cookies, muffins, etc.) seem to be smaller than they used to be (while naturally the prices stay where they are or go up).

[General Zod]

Fucking Toblerone. Those assholes.

[Korto]

Mars Bars. I remember all the song and dance they made when they increased the size to 60g.
It's now down around 50g, and, you know? I don't remember them saying a word.

[Sea Skimmer]

Combo bags went from 8 to 6 ounces years ago, at least a decade ago. I recall some candy shrank back when I was still in high school, IIRC this was very specifically linked to a surge in world chocolate prices around that time that came down to Global Warming vs rising demand from Asian markets, not just China.

[Elheru Aran]

There was a bit of a run up about... ehh... I guess ten years ago or so, with all the chains trying to top each other. Then SuperSize Me came out and while it wasn't *that* great of a documentary it did draw some people's attentions to what was going on there. Since then, portion sizes and such have definitely come down a good bit, especially at sit-down restaurants. Prices haven't though.

[Archinist]

Well, there were some squid rings that you could get from hungry jacks, a few years ago their were thick, juicy, and full of bulging luscious squid meat, but now they're dried up batter sticks filled with holes and no squid.

[Simon_Jester]

Getting less for your money has been a fairly standard way for inflation to be 'handled' throughout history. It's a truism that food prices have been rising in recent years due to fuel costs (climate change may also be in play in some cases), so I'm not surprised at widespread portion shrinking.

[Vendetta]

Particularly in chocolate bars which tend to be positioned as an impulse purchase, there's an upper ceiling to the price people are willing to pay per unit. So as costs rise (cocoa production is down globally) and the markets increase (demand increasing in Russia, China, and Brazil), something has go give.

If the price can't rise, the portion goes down.

[Elheru Aran]

If the price can't rise, the portion goes down.

Notably true in convenience/snack foods. There's only so much that people are willing to pay for that stuff in general. Say a bag of chips, maybe 4oz-- if the price is much above say two USD, it had better be either some very good/special chips, or people won't be paying that much for chips. Candy bars, chocolate bars, that kind of thing, same rule-- it has to be low enough that people can go "give me twenty bucks of gas on pump two, eh, and this too [grabs Snickers]" without flinching.

[Wing Commander MAD]

My mother and I have been noticing this for years. I do not have a problem, per se, with decreasing the amount/size of something due to increased prices of ingredients or increased transportation costs. Nor do I have problem with increasing the price of goods to reflect said increases. What draws my ire is when they do both. Pick one option or the other, no double dipping. It turns out you that you can have your cake and eat it too, at least if you are a corporation. This is not even considering actual inflation or the stagnation of income.

[Stormin]

https://consumerist.com/tag/grocery-shrink-ray-2/

It's been noticed and documented for quite some time of course. The worst is when the container stays the same size, but the bottom is domed up, not only making less there but more hard to get at the stuff in the newly made corners so more wasted too.