Reader Bill noticed that someone hit Breyers Ice Cream with the grocery shrink ray… again:
I’m just getting over the first wave of ice cream shrinkage (from 1/2 gallon to 1.75 quarts) when I noticed today that Breyer’s is upping (or rather shrinking) the ante – they’re beginning to roll out 1.5 qt packages!
Bill
We checked Breyers’ website and noticed that they haven’t updated from the last time they shrunk their package:
Why have you downsized your Breyers 1/2 gallon cartons?
Over the last two years or so, a number of our ice cream competitors made the decision to reduce the size of their 1/2 gallon containers. At the current time, the price on all of our ingredients, most of all the fresh cream we use in our products, has gone up dramatically in cost. In order to remain competitive, Breyers has made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our basic pack to 56 oz. We believe this change is a way of mitigating the level of future price increases compared to what otherwise might have been the case. As always, you can expect the same great Breyers quality which has been our standard for over 135 years.
They are, according to Bill’s photograph, now down to 48 oz. At this rate, Breyers ice cream boxes are going to be about as full as potato chip bags.
(Photo:Bill)
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Good news for me.
Eat less! For the same price!
apparently…1.5 quarts is the new half gallon.
Not to mention their ice cream is mostly AIR – hold a Breyer’s pint in one hand and a Haagen Dasz in the other – the Breyer’s feels like it’s 1/4 the weight.
In Breyer’s defense, at least they changed the packaging from a rectangle to a more curved shape the first time they made a change. If they had simply shrunken the rectangle by 12.5%, I probably wouldn’t have been clued in to look at the size label.
That said, I find the more deceptive attempts at this (see Country Crock) to be despicable.
I guess its just a sign of the times. But being that ice cream is one of those items that this born-again frugal person can cut out without too much distress, I’m not all that upset about it.
Eggs and milk on the other hand…
At least they’re being honest. “Costs are going up and we need to be competitive”. It’d be annoying if they said something like “Our research shows consumers prefer sleeker slimmer packaging for their tub of ice cream!”.
Edy’s (a.k.a. Dreyer’s) ice cream packages just shrank as well – I went to a Meijer store in Dearborn the other day, and it looked like the bottom inch of all of the ice cream buckets was removed!
There should be a running list of all of the companies that are trying to pull a fast one like this…
Anyway, if you look on ingredients of this ”natural” ice-cream, you’ll see that there are MUCH better and natural products.
Don’t you know that it’s to better serve you, the consumer?!
Those are the most disgusting strawberries I have ever seen.
This is really just the result of increased food prices and inflation. The options available to Breyer’s are:
1)increase prices, maintain product quality and size. 2)maintain price, maintain product quality, decrease size. 3)maintain price, decrease product quality, maintain size. 4)maintain price, maintain quality, maintain size, take loss. #4 is not practical from a business standpoint, #3 is by far the worst option from a consumer standpoint, and whether they had gone with #1 or #2 they’d have gotten complaints, but at least they appease those that talk about corporate responsibilty for obesity with #2.
probably a lot easier then raising the price. Raising the price up and down due to market would be extremely difficult. I don’t think the retail stores are as nimble as the gas pumps
How is it that they remain on the shelves next to each other, at the same price, with the same price per unit of weight?? Does the food store ever update this when these companies do this (when it doesn’t change the price)?
im guessing because milk prices have been increasing for a while now.
I noticed the size change too when I picked up some Breyer’s the other week….of course I never forgave Breyer’s for adding agar gum and other preservatives to their “natural” product. I like it when ice cream melts into a liquid, not some weird foamy thing.
Rite Aid(old Thrifty) ice cream is the same. used to be 1.89L and now is 1.66, also the price went from 2.99 to 3.49.
I’ve never really understood the issue with this. Production costs go up – which means the manufacturer can either increase the price of the item or hold the price but reduce the qty. It’s just the way it is. If the consumer doesn’t like it, he should shop with his feet and buy another product – or nothing at all.
@AlteredBeast: The companies don’t exactly alert the stores when they do this, and communication can take a while to come down the line.
@mgy: somehow i didn’t even notice that. why are they orange? the levels don’t even seem off in this picture.
Ewww! If you eat Breyer’s “ice cream”, you deserve whatever you get!
Breyer’s all natural is like $8 up in canada. I’ll still buy it in the states and pack it in a cooler to bring it back, even at that price.
Don’t you know? The ice cream is now 33% more potent.
If only I could “expect the same great Breyers quality which has been [their] standard for over 135 years.”
There is now gum and stabilizers in their ice cream — so it’s not just a smaller, more expensive product; it’s an inferior quality one as well.
Unfortunately, if you want an ice cream unadulterated by things like gums and corn syrup, you need to make your own.
@MickeyMoo: If a 56 oz Breyers carton in one hand weighs 1/4 of the 56 oz Haagen-Dazs carton in your other hand, then all I can think of is that you ate 3/4 of it.
@mgy: Yeah, WTF’s up with the orange strawberries?
@MickeyMoo: Haagen Dasz’s extra weight is mainly due to milkfat. It’s the same reason it and Ben and Jerry’s tastes soooooooooo good your wife’s/girlfriend’s ass gets bigger just looking at it.
@Rectilinear Propagation: they are strawberries made of oranges! lol yhea they sure do look weird… I guess strawberries are getting expensive too. But yea good news for the people trying to lose weight!
At least they were honest about it, and didn’t pass it off as “Optimizing Customer Satisfaction” like the aptly named Country Crock.
Eh, not a fan of Bryers anyway. Though this is probably just setting the new standard that Edys and Turkey Hill are going to follow.. unfortunately.
Then again, only ever by ice-cream when it’s on sale, so no real biggie.
Breyers used to be some decent ice cream that was worth the extra cash. More and more of their varieties have junky additives in them now. I have to also agree with the people who noted it is extremely full of air by comparison, now the shrinking package.
Were trying to cut down on eating ice cream because it really is bad from a dietary standpoint. We bought an ice cream maker but use it mostly for sorbet. So if we want ice cream we have to make a special trip or go somewhere like cold stone. Making it harder to get means you eat it less.
@Rectilinear Propagation: White balance.
I’m seriously getting irritated with the attitude that these companies are cheating us by making smaller product for the same price. Price of inputs goes up in large part due to INFLATION, which is essentially the government stealing from us (not these companies). If we’re going to keep having these posts, couldn’t there be a tag on it for GOVERNMENT or INFLATION or something like that?
This seems like kind of a non-story to me. Food costs are going up, so naturally it is either downsize the amount of product or up the price. I think people are more willing to pay the same for less, than pay more for the same.
@nytmare: Actually, Mickeymoo said pint – IIRC, a pint is a measure of volume, not weight – so a pint of milk and a pint of water would indeed have different weights.
Turkey Hill has done the same thing. Dammit. Pretty soon it’s going to be too expensive to go to the grocery store. And if you can afford the gas to get you there, you probably won’t be able to buy much once you’re there.
This will absolutly make me buy less Bryers. The difference between them and the smaller (premium) brands (Ben and Jerry’s and etc) is now not that big.
Breyer’s used to be my favorite ice cream, but they’ve really been in decline in recent years. Do any of you guys remember the Breyer’s “Space Saver” size they introduced a few years ago?
When I noticed Breyers had switched their recipe to one with stabilizers in it, that’s when I stopped buying. The reason why they did it was so that they could whip a higher volume of air into their ice-cream, which essentially meant we were getting less for ice cream for our money (and of inferior mouthfeel!)
It’s kind of a shame, really, because there aren’t any brands out there any more that are made the ‘old fashioned’ way, now they all have seaweed gum in them.
@Katra: They absolutly do let the stores know ahead of time. In fact the larger stores have say in the package size. The option is always presented do you want to raise the price or decrease the size. The stores know exactly what they are purchasing and what will be delivered months in advance.
I saw this yesterday in fact. It prompted me to either find the larger size of the flavors I wanted (I got the last of one of them
) or buy a different brand. I’m sure Edy’s and Dean’s will go this way soon… but until then, I shall avoid Breyer’s.
All the more reason for me to get my ice cream from Coldstone Creamery, or to get Ben and Jerry’s if I must get it from a store.
@evenkevin:
Unfortunately, Breyers took option 2 first, then option 3 and finally option 2 again. The move from 2qt to 1.75qt was their first cost-saving measure, but the worst one (and the one which made me stop liking their ice cream) was the addition of stabilizers to their recipe.
Breyers began adding seaweed gum to their ice cream, allowing them to whip in a significant amount of air without changing the texture past what a typical consumer might expect. This was undoubtedly done as an attempt to save cost on ingredients, but it really decreased the quality of the ice cream in my opinion. It’s kind of a shame, because I really liked Breyer’s Ice cream – I’ve never found another brand which was all natural but not oozing with milkfat.
I hate all this size changing with food. Its just dishonest I think and they’re trying to hide the price increase. Raise the price if you have to, dont just try and sneak in under the radar.
I wish food manufacturers would raise the price instead of shrinking packages. It screws up recipes. A can of tomatoes used to be 16 oz, it’s now 14.5. If they shrink again to, say, 12 oz then I’ll have to open another can to get the recipe straight. That means I’d be paying more anyway – 2 cans instead of 1 – so just be honest about it to begin with! Please!
This makes me so happy I got an ice cream maker over Christmas. Mmmmm, I think a little chocolate, mint espresso bean is in order…
Breyer’s is mostly preservatives and, judging by the weight, whipped cream. Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, and Blue Bell are the best ice creams that are available where I live.
I’m not surprised. Milk really is a LOT more expensive now that it was a few years ago.
At least eating less ice cream never killed anyone.
The reason for the guar gum (it might also be locust bean or xanthan gum) is to enable the addition of additional air, called overrun, to the ice cream mix. So you’re getting less volume and more air for the same $$. That’s why the Breyer’s carton feels so light next to the Haagen-Dazs, which has much less overrun. With the added air, the amount of decrease in product is probably even more than the 25% reduction in volume. That’s some serious price inflation–Breyer’s should be making as much money as Exxon at this rate.
It’s not just ice cream. I’ve been noticing this in all parts of the grocery store. Prices are staying the same but content volume is decreasing, sometimes drastically. It’s probably logistically easier for the companies.
Unfortunately a lot of consumers either don’t pay enough attention (Gee, I ate the whole bag of Doritos like I usually do, but I’m still hungry, guess I need to buy more next time) or are already cutting every corner they can to make ends meet and now have to buy more packages of the same item in order to get as much as they were before, increasing their grocery costs quite significantly.
Am I the only one who knows the goodness of Tillamook ice cream? It comes from very happy cows, who incidentally do NOT come from California.