Is "holistic" being used for any other reason than it's a buzzword?

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy->★: Probably because the average consumer has no idea what it means, and thus financial security through obscurity!

I'm trying to stomach holistic, and I seem to be barfing it.
"To emphasize the whole and the interdependence of its parts" The human body? A well oiled machine?
Has our food companies turned our food packages into robots?!

Somewhere inside General Mills there is some marketing asshat getting highfives, slaps on the backs, and a promotion for finding a way to say, "Fucking over consumers without them noticing" in a way that actually sounds positive.

I for one will practice Alternative Wallet Resdistribution and purchase the cereal in a bag knockoffs that taste pretty much the same and dont practice Holistice margin management.

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy->★: I have a strong suspicion that the people who throw that word around in my office have no idea what it means.

/"Due diligence."
//"At the end of the day."

I am generally keenly aware of this assholery and reward the offending manufacturer by finding an alternative. There are very few food items for which one cannot find a reasonable substitute, but we don't eat much processed food anyway. The one item for which my children will not accept a substitute is the yellow-boxed cereal that sounds like mirios, but Costco has great deals on these and to my knowledge thus far has not employed the shrink ray. Yet.

@RurouniX: KRUSTY: So he's proactive, huh?

EXECUTIVE: Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.

MEYER: Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that. I'm fired, aren't I?

MEYERS: Oh, yes.

@HighontheHill:

Have you tried taking the no brand bagged cereal and refilling a Mirios box? Works like a voodoo charm.

@Angryrider:
..Or, or.... as a passive-aggressive way to keep consumers from eating so much and thus keeping themselves, and Gen Mills' profit lines healthy completely?

Or maybe they mean Hole-istic, in the "Our Ideas are so fail even normally unconcerned consumers can see the holes?"

@RoswellMarten: Is the deception really worth it? When the kids find out that their Merios have been a lie, they will wonder what else you have lied about.
What's really in the meatloaf? Why do my new shoes already smell bad? Why does this tomato soup taste a lot like ketchup? JSC is not a name brand... who's initials are on my underwear?

brought to you by Dirk Gently with the help of the professor's time machine

Comparing unit prices isn't always as easy as I'd like. For a start in the UK there doesn't seem to be any rules about comparing like with like so some things will be £/each, some £/kilo even though you may want to compare in the same units.

@RoswellMarten:

My mom used to do this all the time to my brother and I. She did it to the milk, too. She'd put 1 percent milk in the 2 percent jug. Although eventually we found out, she was the one that got the groceries so we couldn't really complain. If we did, we'd get the lecture "When you get your own job, you can buy whatever you want." I still buy Malt-o-Meal cereal in the bag. When it's MY dollar I'm spending, I get pretty cheap.

I did my persuasive speech for my public speaking course (COMM 250 here at Clemson) on the grocery shrink ray. The result? An enraged class, and a prof that gave me a near perfect score (148/150).

I mention that to say this: while researching it at the grocery store first-hand, the most interesting thing I found was that the stores are wising up to the unit prices, and making it harder to compare unit prices by only organizing the same brand's products with the same units (This behavior was observed at both BI-LO and Food Lion stores and If I can get the pictures off my phone I'll send them in).

@Skipweasel: There are no rules here in the US, either, but most reputable grocers will list a standard unit comparison on the price tag. Otherwise, it's time to get out the calculator.

Meats and fruits/veggies are generally all sold by the pound, but packaged goods are random.

I'm noticing the unit prices being fooled with more than ever these days. If there's a big, medium, and small size of hunks of cheese for example, they'll raise the price of one size but not another, changing which one is cheaper per unit. I'm lucky that the store where I do the bulk of my shopping posts the price per oz in tiny numbers on the shelf tag.

It means that they're viewing the product holistically - in terms of its overall impression - when finding ways to maintain profit margins. So if they still need a 10% margin after a 5% cost increase, they'll consider smaller quantities, cheaper packaging, reducing marketing, automating production more, less expensive ingredient alternatives, etc.

@ADismalScience: cheaper packaging

Bzzzt! "More environmentally friendly" packaging :D

@tgrwillki: I have noticed inconsistent unit sizing among like items on store shelves. Target and Sams club are both guilty of it.
Brand #1 will be in ounces, Brand #2 will be on some odd measurement like pounds or cups. It makes price comparisons harder.

General Mills is really taking a risk with this. Half of the population is too distracted or stupid to see what they are doing. The other half does and the smarmy marketing tactics are expediting them to spend their dollars elsewhere. So half are leaving. The other half, a percentage will wise up, the remaining will see their purchasing power dwindle as they have less to spend on over priced convenience food. I fail to see the math where this is profitable.

@The Name's Ash78, Housewares:

PR Department is over there. It's way over there, underneath all the brimstone, in the lake of fire.

General Mills hardly a big money maker on wall street, perhaps they are just doing their best

@TrueBlue63: We've been conditioned by huge scandals and gigantic companies raiding the Treasury for bonus money that we've become numb to excitement that was the Grocery Shrink Ray.

It's lost whatever shock value it had and we've all come to rationalize getting less for our money. Maybe it's time to retire it?

@altryan:

Heh, AWR, nice.

Still, it seems Malt-O-Meal has made their bag smaller as well.
You can still get those giant sacks of "fruit rocks" but I have noticed their regular size bags shrink a bit. I wish I had kept some older bags for comparison.

This has been going on for years. I was stocking grocery store shelves back in the 1980's when coffee cans shrunk from a true 16ounze pound to the 13oz cans. That FUBAR-ed the coffee section until all the 16oz cans sold thru.

Witness the dish washing detergent (hand not machine) from "regular" to "ultra". Essentially the same deal- less water /liquid to ship for the same profit. One of the detergent makers ( I forget which one) even advertised the new bottle spout with a smaller hole in it to "use less of the better Ultra version".

I recognized this spout and kept one of the restricted spout caps around for a long time, since, after a period of time, one new bottles of the Ultra, the spout design had magically returned to the pre-Ultra spout version with the bigger hole in it.

I even called the company hotline (pre internet 1-800 number- whahoo! ) and asked the drone there why the spout changed back. I got some stupid, kooky response on how they configure and market their products which meant "you caught us but who else has noticed so we don't care because we are making profits".

My restricted spout would eventually get tossed in the garbage still installed on its latest bottle by my now ex-wife...

Sorry, but where I come from, home is not a restaurant. If your kids don't like what you give them to eat, there is nothing forcing them to eat it. Eventually they will get hungry enough that they will eat what you give them. Yes, it does work and no the police won't do anything about it since you are offering them food.

Holistic margin management isn't specific to the General - it's an industry term.

People sound betrayed that a big company would rename a sometimes-distasteful concept with a slicker, more palatable euphamism. It's not like this is the first time it's happened.

As the article mentioned, it's about a lot more than just shrinking packages - it's also about reducing costs and finding more efficient ways to do things. It is, however, pretty boring to work on about 90% of the time.

Oh, I noticed.

I have Multi-Grain Cheerios (aka The World's Most Perfect Food) delivered through Amazon. I use the Subscribe & Save program, but not once have I received an automatic shipment, because by the time the next one comes around, the item has already been discontinued and replaced with a smaller package size. I went from a case of five 16-oz. boxes, to 12.8-oz., to 9-oz. boxes, which I blow through in a couple weeks. And I'm pretty sure the price for a five-box case has remained pretty much the same the whole time.

And now they're completely unavailable while General Mills tries to decide what new, smaller package they're going to roll out next. I bet it'll be the 100-pack of single-serving bowls...from there the only thing they'll be able to do is dole it out O by O.

@bluewyvern: I do not wish to spread misinformation. You do in fact get six of the 9-oz. boxes.

That changes everything.

@Dervish: I feel more betrayed by how stupid it sounds. Hard to believe they invented Lucky Charms.

@tgrwillki: 1) i think you might owe ben some money for your excellent grade - i believe he has some sort of IP on the shrinkray. ;) congrats.

2) some states have laws that require consistent unit pricing by commodity. take my state (conn.) as an example:

Connecticut General Statute Chapter 417, 21a-75-5(d).

The price shall be designated as per 50 units or 100 units of commodities, whose net quantity is expressed by a numerical count provided, that the same unit of measure is used for the same commodity in all sizes sold in such retail establishment.

Required Units of Measure for Unit Price Designation

The following list of products indicates the corresponding unit of measure which is required to be used in the designation of the unit price of such products by all retail food establishments subject to the unit price regulations. As a general rule, all dry bulk products are unit priced by the pound; all products sold in aerosol cans are unit priced by the pound; and the majority of the liquid products are unit priced by pints, quarts or gallons. There are several products on this list which may be unit priced by different units of measure, provided that the same unit of measure is used for the same commodity in all sizes sold in a single retail food establishment.

I've noticed it recently for certain canned drinks that are now shipping in a "more convenient" 8 can package that looks exactly the same on the shelf, but is obviously smaller when you remove it from the shelf. The price per can has increased, too.

Some of this shrinkage is very inconvenient for cooking. A recipe that calls for 16 oz of something may be fine with 15 oz, but as we scale down to 13 oz, it becomes a problem. I'm tired of all this attempted trickery.

@zibby: If YOU feel stupid, imagine how mind-numbing it feels to be spoon-fed this stuff day in and day out. Since margin management isn't marketed as a concept directly to the consumer (not without further euphemisms, at least), why not call it cost savings? They're sure not fooling any of their employees.