I've written before about food companies shrinking the size of the packages you buy (in a not so secret way of raising the price on you), and others have noticed it too. Today, however, I want to thank the folks at Meadow Gold for breaking me of my chocolate milk habit.
There's plenty of reasons to stop drinking chocolate milk, but I was hooked. Every morning, I had to buy a pint of it to accompany my breakfast. Then Meadow Gold shrank their 16 oz. bottle to a 12 oz. size - but kept the price the same. Obviously this was a way to sneak in a 33% price increase (WTF? 33% increase overnight???). The funny thing is that I would probably still be drinking the stuff if they had simply raised the price but kept the bottle size the same.
Their way to doing it, however, is rather short-sighted. It's unlikely to increase sales, as people who buy single-serving bottles aren't going to start buying two of them. They'll either keep buying one (albeit a smaller one), or they'll switch to a different brand (one that hasn't shrunk). Meadow Gold did cut their cost of sales, however, so this move ought to have a short-term effect on their bottom line. But it increases the amount of packaging per ounce of product, it increases the cost to ship each ounce of product, and it will harm sales.
Still, they got me to quit, so I thank them.
