Yes, the cereal box DID get smaller

The “Tough Customer” column in November 2008’s SmartMoney magazine has some interesting tidbits in it.  Anne Kadet, the author, talks about how her favorite chocolate bar was reconfigured from 16 squares to 12 one day for no good reason.  Turns out, they did it to distract her from the fact that it had gotten smaller. 

Kadet goes on to explain the job of Gary Stibel, founder of a group that works with large companies on figuring out ways to either increase prices of their products or keep prices the same and decrease the size of those products.  Yes, that cereal box DID get smaller, it wasn’t just your mind playing tricks on you.

Turns out that the little 100-calorie ’snack pack’ you see in the stores filled Nutter Butters and Oreo ‘Crisps’ weren’t derived to appeal to the dieter.  The real appeal was to the manufacturer.  The article states Frito Lay is now about to charge $11/pound for their Cheeto’s in the new ’snack pack’ format.

Its worth keeping any eye out next time you go to the store.  The article also touches on how frequently the bulk size box is NOT the best deal and that baking ingredients seem to be the only product immune to the downsizing effort.  It turns out the cooks in the kitchen don’t like it when their standard sized boxes used in preparing recipes get downsized, my guess is that on those products you’ll instead see the price go up instead of the quantity go down.

Related Posts

• No Related Post