but doesn't the VDay mix have different 'sayings' on the candy? In my mind that would justify the less weight at the same price.

Colors are one thing, writing is somehthing else.

"one of the numerous drugstores I frequent in my neighborhood. "

This is just amusing. :)

M&Ms charge a buttload for their "custom" M&Ms and their "special event" M&Ms. [www.mymms.com] I think they're a great idea and I always think, "Oh, I should get those for that baby shower/superbowl party/March Madness game watch" ... and then I go to the website and go, "Oh, right, they're ridiculously expensive!"

M&M Mars is just doing everything they can to combat obesity!

Just wait until Feb. 15 when they will be on sale.

I agree, I buys ALOT of holiday M&M's the day after a holiday and habe paid as low as 75 cents a bag. :-)

That said, while it will never happen, I have always felt companies should be required to "announce" when they made a change like this that is clearly designed to be sneaky and deceive the consumer. If X ounces of M&Ms are always in a bad this size and they change it, they should have to tell... publically.

I would be more willing to purchase a shinkrayed product if the company announced that it would be doing so. Trying to deceive us just makes us more angry about the change.

I think I can deal with "special release" foods being a little shrink-rayed. I mean, they're paying more to produce a special-edition product. Not only that, but they have a MUCH shorter shelf-life since they're generally clearanced after the holiday.

@PLATTWORX:

They do tell it publicly, it's right there on the bag. If you can't be bothered to read it, I hardly see what that's their problem.

@Eyebrows McGee: Yeah, they are, but you can put pictures on them!

Yes, I bought some for my girlfriend for Valentine's Day.

The things you do for love...

Love is blind.
Unfortunately, Mr. Mars, she does carry a set of scales accurate to 1/10 an ounce.

Aren't these the ones that used to be 16 oz. or a "full pound" anyway?

@JustThatGuy3: I strongly disagree! There are many ways to manipulate the packaging of products to make it look like you are receiving the same amount; but in actuality, you are receiving less!

Manufactures have an advantage in the fact they have direct control of pricing and manufacturing/packaging, Whereas the customer may think about the product they are purchasing for a split second and not notice changes to the pricing/amount of product being sold. Advantage, manufacture!

It is their problem if we, the consumer, make it their problem!

I just gotta say, dang, dude/lady knows his/her M&Ms! To be able to know that it is smaller just from picking up the package? And that previous holiday M&Ms were not smaller? That is some M&M expertise right there.

@rockasocky: That was totally my first thought! She must have some amazing hands to immediately notice a difference of an ounce and a half!

Choose people less product or more expensive.

Its called stagflation, and you ain't seen nothing yet. Just thank your local politician, and their endorsement of reckless monetarist policy. Lets print another billion and another and another and another.

Points to the commenter who pointed out that they used to be a pound in the first place!

I'm idly wondering why someone would go through so much candy. I always want to buy a bag and then think about how long it would take to eat an entire bag and how old it would be by then and don't buy it afterall.

@TrueBlue63: Except that stagflation is a combination of low GDP, high unemployment, and high inflation. Last I checked, we were experiencing very low inflation - more like deflation. Stagflation happens when supply costs rise, a normal recession happens when demand falls.

@JustThatGuy3: Yeah Im sure when you go to the grocery store you keep a database of every single item youve bought in the past to verify what the weight was the last time you bought it and what the weight is now.

Believe it or not, some people havent memorized the sizes of every item in the store.

That missing 10% went to Cupid, as payment for use of his name.

If wine can have an "Angel's Share", why not candy? 8^P

Quite frankly...

I'm shocked they didn't just shrink it all the way to 12 ounces. 12.6 is a strange setting on the shrink ray.

I suppose it may be "shrinkrayed" since he's saying the other specialty bags were larger, but I see this all the time at the store. If there is a more premium version of something, it's usually the same price but there is less in the package.

I suspect they do this to reduce shopper confusion. If all the similar items were different prices, people would get confused and/or angry if they grab the gold plated item thinking that it's the regular item. It also reduces the impact of people putting things back on the wrong shelf.

If you really want to see Shrink Ray mastery at work, come to Canada. When we went to the metric system back in the 70's, a quart (Imperial quart = 40 oz.) became a litre (35 oz), with no, repeat no, price change. Even today, grocers can advertise weights in lbs and then charge kilos at the register. So if you don't know that 2.00/lb is 4.40.kg, you may get overcharged at the register. And yet, our government condones this bad behaviour.

@post_break: I like it best when the company admits they're doing it to keep the same price point. What's bad is many companies "greenwash" the shrinkray by talking about how much material they are saving, as in the Poland Spring bottles that use "20% less plastic," but also have two less ounces of water (and can you really "green" bottled water in the first place?). Pepsi's website makes similar claims about their shrinking Nestea bottles. Haagen Daaz had a site explaining their shrinking containers that was actually very good, and I think was featured here.

What's sad about the greenwashing is that a smaller container is almost always less efficient. Basic geometry states that a smaller 3D form has a higher surface to volume ratio, and as the "surface" is packaging in these products, more materials are being used for the same amount of product, and the smaller containers are less useful for reuse. Granted, if the new containers allow them to increase the amount of product on a truck (by ounces, not units), that is green, but I don't think that's what usually happens.

What would be green is to shrink the package, but not the product, and pass on the savings to the consumer while increasing the price a small amount to account for materials. I like this one idea an organic brand of yogurt uses, where a thin layer of plastic is augmented by a recycled cardboard label so that it uses few materials, but can hold its shape. The cardboard can be recycled or biodegrade, and the small amount of plastic is a type that can be recycled.

This is ridiculous and a slap in the consumers face!

@synergy:

I always want to buy a bag and then think about how long it would take to eat an entire bag and how old it would be by then and don't buy it afterall.

I have that problem in the exact opposite direction. If I buy candy, I eat it. With gusto. I can't keep the stuff in the house.

It's nothing new, either. I remember a MAD magazine article from way back that addressed this. I don't know if it was a reprint but it was in the 70s. It had pictures of cookie packages where the cardboard dividers got bigger and bigger and the amount of cookies got smaller, but the size of the package stayed the same.

I'll have to dig that out and look at it again. I have it somewhere.

Yes, this is a repeated vitim of the Shrink Ray:
16oz. -> 14 oz. -> 12.6 oz.

Just like ice cream:
2qts. ->1.75qts. ->1.5qts.

@kamikasee:

These are *not* a "more premium version" of something. They are just the standard M&Ms, except they are "special" colors (i.e. all red, etc.). In the past year or two they have done a lot of the "special colors" in order to sell more units. There have all-green bags, all-pink bags (for breast cancer), Halloween colors, Christmas colors, etc. These bags have been the same size and price as the regular medium-size bags.

@PLATTWORX: @Davan:

I agree with JustThatGuy. The information is clearly visible, and yes, it sucks that there is a size decrease, but what else can they really do? Do you expect them to have TV ads or product labelings saying "new smaller size?" And yes, they could always raise the price, but i'm sure these companies do research and showed a consumer will just buy a different product.

@Sandlapper: Perfectly 90%, thus why.

@Davan:

Who cares what size changes they make? When you walk in, look at the package, and decide, "am I willing to pay $XYZ for ABC ounces of DEF product?" If the answer is yes, put it in your cart. If no, don't. What's so hard?

@danno50:

So, when Kraft sells you X slices of cheese for $Y, they're somehow committing to sell you X slices for $Y forever, unless they go out of their way to tell you?

When you go to work in the morning, if you aren't feeling 100%, do you tell your boss "I may not be running full speed today, so feel free to pay me less if you think it's appropriate?"

@rockasocky: And she had other holiday bags laying around to take pics for comparison!

What's funny to me is that even if companies did put the notification on the product, they'd do it with deceptive lettering/wording.

(giant) NOW WITH 10%
(tiny) less

And people would not only wind up buying it for the "more willing to purchase a shinkrayed product if the company announced that it would be doing so," but you'd also get the "I SEE 10% SO THAT MUST MEAN MORE" crowd who don't bother to really look.

Really shocked that companies HAVEN'T been doing this already.

@JustThatGuy3: Its not a matter of difficulty, its a matter of habit. Every mother going to the grocery store on Saturday morning has a list of things she buys. She buys them every week, and has for the past 10 years. The family loves Kraft, she buys Kraft. The family prefers Doritos, she buys Doritos. So when Doritos changes from X ounces to Y ounces without a price change, she doesnt notice it. She continues to blissfully pay for more less.

If the companies were forced to conscientiously report these size changes, maybe Mrs. Habit would notice and decide to change her buying habits. Maybe she would try out the house brand. Who knows. At least she has the CHOICE to make a choice.

The point is simply, that by "sneaking" the changes in, the companies are praying that the majority of people simply do not notice, for whatever reason. You, for whatever reason, feel that they are justified in attempting to mislead people. I, and most other rational people, do not.

@Davan: Er that was supposed to be "blissfully pay more for less."

@Davan:

They're not misleading anyone. They're selling exactly what they say they are. What sort of notification would be appropriate for you? A sign in the aisle? Fliers mailed to customers? Full page ads in major daily newspapers? A 2 minute Super Bowl ad?

The fact that most people don't notice means they don't care - if they did, they'd look closer. I don't remember if soup comes in 12oz or 11.5oz cans, and I don't spend a lot of time on it, because whether I'm spending 8.3c/oz or 8.7c/oz doesn't matter to me.

@Plates: I think the better solution is to stop buying anything from the company. This may be hard to do for some products, but not candy. There are much better candies out there anyway, in my opinion.

Of course, in this case you might also want to shoot them an email explaining this, if you want them to care. Otherwise they might just attribute it to reduced spending due to the recession, and not their actions.

Nope. The shrink ray has hit ALL medium bags. I was in my local CVS and saw a 12.4oz bag of regular M&M's.
I rummaged around a little bit and found a 14oz bag to purchase, but man, I always read about the grocery shrink ray, but never expected it to hit so close to home...

why is it that when they take a little fat out of the milk, they charge you more money?! 2% is like double the cost of whole!

wow.......simply amazing

@TinkishDelight: That's what got me, too. They had the other bags of candy.

"See? I've got the 1998-2006 Thanksgiving bags right here. 14 oz. Except for this one. It's labeled 14 oz, but it felt light to me. I weighted it and its only got 13.8."

Of course, now I've got a massive chocolate craving. *reaches for the Callebaut*

@Eyebrows McGee: We have several pounds of custom printed logo M&M's at the office. Since they're super expensive, we don't eat them, but otherwise I have no idea what they're for. I thought they were supposed to be for trade-shows, but they sat through them undisturbed. o.O

Are you just now figuring this out!?!? We as consumers have been getting screwed for a while and I tthink most people have been missing it all along. Take for example ice cream. We used to get a half gallon of ice cream in the cartons. Then overnight the manufacturers changed that to fancier packages with removable lids and reduced the "half gallon" to 1.75 gallons. Did the price changwe ? Of course it did. It went up and most people probably figured it was because of packaging. We lost .25 gallonsper carton but ended up paying about 50 cents more. Now I notice Walmart no longer carries 25-30 ice cream flavors in hte half gallons rectangular cartons. They only have about 8 flavors including the basic plain stuff. Their fancier flavors are now in those cooler cartons with the removable lids. The price has gone up by a full $1.38 and this is what really pisses me off, the size went from a half gallon to 1.50 gallons. They dropped a full 16 ounces and still raised the price by over 50%. Why do we continue to pay? Because they know we are hooked and don't notice the drop in product amount until some brainiac puts something on Digg. Thanksfor letting us know brainiac.

@JustThatGuy3: Im glad that you have enough money that changes in price/value mean nothing to you. Thats great that youre above 90% of the country, great for you.

However, as I mentioned above (and you chose to ignore), people that purchase items on a regular basis as part of a large shopping trip as part of a very busy day, trust that the items they are buying are the same as they were last week. They dont have a huge database chronicling price and size changes from week to week to help them make smarter buying decisions. Therefore they buy what they always buy - It isnt a matter of not caring if there is a price change - It is that they DIDNT NOTICE IT. This is the concept that seems to elude you.

I think that a box in the corner of the product detailing the previous size and MSRP and the current size and MSRP would be fine. Something noticeable, but not too distracting.

@ludwigk: It's like the guest towels and the fine china... We'll never be allowed ot touch 'em.

I quit eating M&Ms years ago, as soon as I learned that the Mars company deliberately uses "less satiating" chocolate. So you open a bag of M&Ms, pour some into your hand, pop them into your mouth and start chewing, expecting that sweet chocolate rush. The rush that never comes. Hmmm. So you munch another mouthful, and another, chasing the dragon that stays just out of sight. And before you know it, the bag is empty and you think "Why didn't I enjoy that more?"

Actually, this is not a first. I happen to have a bag of Holiday Mix M&Ms here and it is only 11 oz. So really this V-day mix is an improvement over the shenanigans they pulled at this last Christmas.