I just found out that Bryers had reduced the size of their 1.75 quart "half-gallon" to 1.5 quarts. The package is the same height, width and depth, but the smaller package tapers a little more at the bottom. To me THIS IS A PRICE INCREASE of about 16% which the company has decided to try to hide. I hate that form of corporate dishonesty. When they try to foist nonstandard sizes what else do they do to the product itself to reduce costs? My only response is to boycott their products and publicize these underhanded practices as much as possible.

WHERE IS THIS ICE CREAM $3.59??? Where I am, not only did they reduce the size by 25% but they increased the price from $4.99 to $5.49 (10% increase)!!

For years I had to listen to my husband tell me that breyer's was the best ice cream, all natural. Not True! Now my husband is calling the cheap bastards. I wrote to Breyer's about a year ago complaing that they had changed their recipe...no response. I guess their mother's never taught them to be polite. Now they cheapened their size and they think we are stupid and wouldn't know the difference....surprize. We have noticed your new recipes as well as your cheapening packaging. I guess your mother's are proud of you now, MAKE MORE MONEY FOR YOUR COMPANY! When they were small I am sure that their mother's gave them treats of the original Breyer's. It was important to be natural. I am in controll of my shopping list and Breyer's you have just been crossed off my list.
We can controll what they do by not purchasing their product. I for one would rather shop for a product that gives back to our planet and cares what they put in our food.

As for Ben and Jerry's, they have been using preservatives forever. I don't eat it anymore because i can taste the guar gum.

Um, isn't giving the consumes less for the same amount of money the same as raising prices?

Rite-Aid did this with the Thrifty brand ice cream(@ least the new tub-style package design is nifty)

@scoosdad: Metric,baby, metric for the ol'USA.

"Whoa there, gas is only $1 per liter at that store?"

1 gallon= 3.785412 liter and gas is now about $3.79/gal or more in some places...

@etherealclarity:

Is the 13oz "pound" of coffee at 10oz yet?

So now I have no incentive to spend more money to get less fake ice cream. No problem.

I'm willing to pay more for quality, even if it means less.

Unfortunately, Breyers isn't what comes to mind when I think of quality.

I get pints from the local icecream shop down the street. Yum!

These round of hidden price increases via de-sizing is the same thing that happened in the 1970s. Then, as now, there was a commodity price spike. Look to see more of the same until the, inevitable, commodity price bust. (bust always follows boom).

Edy's already began going this route. My local shop really only sells their slow churned and "Loaded" lines. The Loaded line is a "frozen dairy dessert" and has the texture of being infused with air. you can compress a scoop into a tablespoon. VERY disappointing.

.

Why have you downsized your Breyers 1/2 gallon cartons?
Because everyone else is jumping off a bridge, we felt our customers would expect us to do the same.

In order to remain competitive, Breyers has made the difficult decision to give you less, charge you the same and try to fool you into thinking nothing has changed.

i went to get a dozen eggs, but lo and behold, the eggs were GIGANTIC...each easily weighing in at 10-15 lbs each, although the package, clearly busting at the styofoam seams, said 12 eggs 27oz.
now, you might ask, "is this for real?" and the answer my friends is, "no."

what?

i totaly noticed this last week. my husband bought two boxes of ice cream. ours which was chocolate/vanilla was 1.5, and my MIL's which was butter pecan was 1.75. how long had that butter pecan been hanging around the freezer case is what im really wondering.

Some Breyers flavors are even smaller at just 48 ounces.

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.

At least eating less ice cream never killed anyone.

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!

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

At least they were honest about it, and didn't pass it off as "Optimizing Customer Satisfaction" like the aptly named Country Crock.

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.

Don't you know? The ice cream is now 33% more potent.

im guessing because milk prices have been increasing for a while now.

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)?

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.

There should be a running list of all of the companies that are trying to pull a fast one like this...

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...

That said, I find the more deceptive attempts at this (see Country Crock) to be despicable.

Good news for me.