Are shrinking products a sneaky way of increasing prices?

“Fruit juice should not be part of your five a day, says government adviser”
“Fruit juice has as much sugar as many soft drinks and should be removed from five-a-day guidance, says obesity expert”
And what has happened to this advice from 2014….

I agree. Even unsweetened fruit juice can contain a lot of sugar. It’s better to eat the whole fruit, which will help limit the amount we consume and will probably provide more fibre.

Eating a couple of portions of fruit and as much vegetables as possible should be the message.

I think Topicana Creations are a cunning way of using up left-overs from various tanks in the fruit juice production process by concocting some unusual combinations and presenting them as a premium product at a higher unit cost [i.e. same price, less volume].

Lessons in production economics and marketing in one sentence. Very good John.

Today I tried to use a Tesco voucher when buying a carton of Tropicana fruit juice and was told at the checkout that the voucher only applied to the 1ltr and over sizes [it was in tiny print which I had not noticed]. Yet the cartons are exactly the same size as the previous 1 ltr packs and I don’t think the store staff have realised that there is less product in each carton. Like Stewart, I was a bit annoyed to find that I couldn’t get five glasses of juice out of the box. It’s not part of my 5+-a-day, it’s just that I can’t function first thing until I’ve had some pineapple juice. There must be something in it that oils my spring.

Stewart – I notice that Tropicana have changed the portion volume to 150 ml re are now five and two-thirds portions in a carton. So the smaller pack now contains more servings! More bamboozlement!

In itself, reducing portion sizes is not a bad thing but not to disguise a price hike.

I don’t know if this is true, but I believe that decreasing the amount is rather dishonest compared with a price increase.

By remembering unit prices of products we buy regularly, we can spot both price rises and smaller packs.

I agree, Wavechange. I wouldn’t mnd so much if indeed the reduced quantity did come in smaller packs but so often they keep the pack the same [with less in it] or reconfigure the packaging completely to confuse customers. I agree with Diesel [below] on the desirability of standardisation in weights and volumes of identical products; failing that keep up the pressure for accurate unit pricing clearly displayed.

Disappointed by anti-climax of eclipse due to cloud occlusion; subscription cancelled.

I watched the eclipse and did have some good views between the clouds. I was expecting a total eclipse but I was disappointed to see only a 90% eclipse, or thereabouts. Short changing the public is reaching astronomical proportions.

Too right. Supermoon also absent so disappointment doubled. Buy two, get nothing – it won’t catch on. Discount demanded next time.

I used to pass Luke Howard’s house in London every day on my way to work; he was the namer of clouds. As a noted meteorologist he would, I expect, have had a name for Friday’s poor performance.

If instant coffee can be sold in 100, 200 and 300g jars then perhaps we should push for other products to be sold in the same way.

My attention was drawn to the ‘New Pack’ for Cif Stainless Steel Cleaner because it was too tall to fit on the normal shelf. On comparing the new package with the old one, I find that the amount has been decreased from 500ml to 450ml. Thank you Unilever. Perhaps Her Majesty the Queen was not impressed because the New Pack no longer carries the Royal Warrant.

I thought the Orb and Sceptre were lacking in lustre these days; now we know why. P’raps she switched to Cillit Bang! for a cleaner regina patina.

It’s Cillit Bang, John. Including an exclamation mark would make the name of the product too distinctive.

Research shows that in fact they do mean 23 washes but do not believe in punctuation. In the magazine page 20 it does mention the dosage per wash has changed but this is written vertically in 2mm script.

If it has not been re-formulated the 2kg version would now give 28.5 washes . I have no doubt someone may be able to find the fact …

Interestinly the 90 wash version of this smelly powders at Tesco’s is only £12 which is a stonking £1.91 kg compared to the £2.83 per kg if you buy the 45 wash version – simply put you pay £3 for the extra 45 washes. The 23 version is currently at half price and only £1.56 per kg. so £6.44 for 92 washes if you stock up.

The downside I think must be for those people who suffer from a perfume semsitivity – apparently around 5% of the population according to actionagainstallergy.co.uk.

I wonder if this problem has been tested for with wash impregnated clothes.

For statistical purposes and inflation indices, shopping basket comparisons are based on unit prices.

The article in the April Which? reveals the tug-of-war between the maufacturers and the retailers, neither of which will reveal the true nature of their wholesale trading terms [for commercially confidential reasons which are understandable]. Apart from better packaging or changed recipes, the justification trotted out for a weight/volume/quantity change is often undisclosed “economic factors”. I am wondering when the positive economic factors like falling road fuel costs, cheaper energy, low interest rates, and stagnant wage growth will start to feature in their pricing calculations??

I might need to correct myself. Apparently the cost of a weekly grocery shop is down by 7% over the last year having fallen by 1% in March 2015.. According to the mySupermarket Groceries Tracker the cost of a basket of 35 items now costs £87.80, down from £88.59 in March. The same basket cost £93.95 in March 2014. Irrespective of which particular economic factors gave rise to it, this is a significant fall in the cost of foodstuff and household essentials. It begs the question why companies feel the need to introduce price rises sneakily by tinkering with the pack sizes.

I think the supermarkets are far better informed as well as more intuitive on customer trends than the manufacturers and that they genuinely believe they can both manipulate customers as well as wrong-foot their competitors. It’s not a big stride from that to see them arranging with the manufacturers of the leading lines for different pack contents to be introduced to confuse shoppers around a price adjustment. The manufacturers can hardly refuse to cooperate [or collude] given the retailers’ buying power and market penetration [a threatened shelf repositioning is probably all it takes to get them to toe the line]. In the minds of retailers every product has a ‘price point’ and the product has to be adjusted to fit it until a step-change occurs in the price versus value perception. Equally, every shopper has a ‘basket budget’ and the big chains are tuned into this with a frightening degree of acuity [this is the value of loyalty cards]. Up until now the pack price has been more prominent on shelf labels than the unit price; perhaps it’s time to reverse this – or at least make them equal.

Gretal – looking at the Soup comapny web-site all the packets for the soups show 4 sachets being inside.

On-line the ASDA offer does say 3 sachets for 50p reduced from 89p. I suspect it may be a special deal for ASDA who think it is a better price point for it’s customers.

Mark, the big retailers are part of the system, I’m no talking about conspiracy theory nonsense, just simple fact, price manipulation is rempant in the fuel industry too, the Government sets a measure for what is meant by fuel poverty, as soon as it looks like that definition will apply to twenty per cent of the population or whatever, they change the measurement, saying, ah well, that measurement gives a misleading picture.