There is one economic area where people do still spend money, whatever the economic circumstances are: food. Grocery stores are not suffering as much as any other retail sector, that is a simple fact, and it explains Canadian Tire’s move.
However, some corporations are using the economic crisis as an excuse to take advantage of us, poor human beings looking to feed, by downsizing their packaging.
Marie-Ève Fournier, a locked-out reporter from Le Journal de Montréal, is reporting on their lock-out news outlet RueFrontenac.com, that food corporations are out there to get us.
I had noticed this downsizing phenomon in years past, the 1L containers shrinking to 960 ml, or 500g becoming 450g, but at the same price! Most of the time, it was an isolated situation. Not anymore.
In the past few weeks:
A 2 litre container of ice cream is no longer 2 litres for Nestlé. It’s Real Dairy ice cream 2 litre container now contains 1.89 litres, a price increase of 5.5%. You can complain to Nestlé here.
Miracle Whip‘s main format, which used to be 1L and went down to 950 ml years ago, has just been reduced to 890 ml. A price increase of over 6%. You can complain to Kraft here.
A brick of cheese from le P’tit Québec, another Kraft product, has gone from 540 g to 500 g. That is a price increase of 7.4%. You can complain to Kraft here.
A box of Pringles‘ Chips went down from 163 g to 140 g, an awful drop of 14% for the tasty taters. You can complain at pringlescan.im@pg.com
What about our good old boxes of cereal? They are changing format too. And since supermarkets want to get rid of their stock, you can now find cereal boxes of different sizes – but they look the same! For instance, you can buy Post’s Honey Bunches of Oats in the old 510 g format and in the new 411 g format. A 19% size change. And apparently, Kellogg is doing the same. You can complain to Post by calling 1-800-431-POST, and to Kellogg by calling 1-888-876-3750.
Thank God, some corporations are not going to use the economic crisis as an excuse to take advantage of consumers. In fact, they’ll go as far as denouncing their competitors, and in this corner we have to give kudos to Ben & Jerry for their staunch defence of the pint of ice cream, which has been abandoned by Häagen Dazs in favor of a smaller 14 oz container – a pint is 16 oz. You can complain to Häagen Dazs by calling 1-888-963-7853.
