Grocery Shrink Ray Affects Innocent Eyeballs and Adorable Babies
Reader Dan noticed something different when buying a new can of formula for his daughter (at left.) Her delicious colic-preventing formula had been hit by the dread grocery shrink ray. Waaah!
I was picking up baby formula the other night and noticed that the kind we'd been buying was touting a "new formulation." At around $25 a container, it's one of the more expensive formulas (it's hard to justify skimping when you know the formula helps your daughter's colic.) Once I got the new formula home I compared it with the "old formula." You can see that the new one has far less weight per canister, but more importantly only makes 75% of the fluid ounces that the old one did.... and still right at $25. I feel a little ripped off, and wanted anyone else using the stuff to be aware of the "improvement".
Meanwhile, the Shrink Ray hit the contents of Josh's Opti-Free contact lens solution, but not the bottle. He writes:
I just bought some Opti-Free contact lens solution this morning, and thought it felt a little light. After holding the sealed bottle up to the light, I noticed that the level was around an inch from the top.Having my old bottle close at hand, I notice that the bottles were the same size, yet the new bottles only have 10 oz - 2 oz. and more than 15% less than the older 12 oz bottles.
It goes without saying, of course, that the prices on all of these items remained unchanged.
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Comments:
Formula is expensive enough. It's very uncool they feel the need to squeeze even more out of new parents.
I find it amusing that he's holding his daughter like a prized trout, and near the big block of knives.
I would like to purchase a clone of that baby please. I don't mind if she's shrink-rayed to 75% of the original size.
@pecan 3.14159265: Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing. When I first saw the article my thoughts are, "what are they gonna do to that poor baby?!?"
My godson had to have special formula as well b/c of is digestive sensitivity. Good LORD, that stuff is insanely expensive! I wanted to cry FOR my best friend when she had to buy the formula.
All 3 of us - standing in the aisle - boo-hooing. Crazy stuff.
@Michelle Davis: and hey! It would be awesome if she only made 75% of the fluid of the original model!
My wife breast-fed my son up till about 16 months. I'm pretty sure it saved us hundreds of dollars that would have gone toward formula.
It sucks for those who breast-feeding isn't option, though.
@LindsayC: doctoral hilarity ensues: Unfortunately, though the baby shrink ray reduces the size of the average baby by 75%, you will be paying roughly 25% more for that baby. That's all.
I think it has hit Kool-Aid and made it even more undrinkable. The last few batches we made from the '2 quart' envelopes were awful and flavorless. I picked up some generic and compared it to the KA packet I still had: Kool Aid = 0.16 oz (4.5g) VS Generic = 0.21 oz (6g). Amazingly the generic tastes like KA used to.
I expected something a little more "honey I shrunk the baby"ish here.
Coming from somebody who works in a grocery store, this shit has been happening for awhile now. I first noticed it with ice cream. How freakin' dare they shrink it from 1.75L to 1.5L??
Tropicana did the same with their plastic 96oz jugs. A week after I noticed the new packaging, I see a coupon for it in the Sunday paper toting, "NEW EASY POUR PITCHER!"
Probably easier to pour since it had 7 less fluid ounces in it. Thanks, jerkoffs!
Those are the two items that stand out for me. Believe me when I say that it's all over the place.
@pb5000:
I remember buying formula for the kids...we'd hit the local Wal Mart and buy them out on the big cans since it was the cheapest place to buy.
When the moved to the baby food jars we'd stock up when they were on sale. We did overdo the carrots/sweet potatoes on one...she turned a bit orange.
That is a considerable drop on the formula. How will that impact people who get formula through things like WIC where they issue them certificates to buy specific items like "4 cans of formula"? People on limited incomes would be stuck with less formula than the program intended them to have. Now you have already strapped people scrambling for extra money or worse yet cutting back on feeding babies. Very not cool move by the company.
I'd like to know what the formlation changes are before I make a decision on whether this is absurd or not
@pecan 3.14159265: I'm fine with that. I'm willing to go as high as $39.95 plus shipping & handling.
I'm sorry, but that picture violated Consumerist standards. The standards clearly state that cats are the appropriate accompaniment to articles. That was clearly not a cat. Please replace baby with cat to rectify the situation.
Just take it easy, folks. We had to raise all those food and drug prices when the gas prices hit $4. Maybe when they go back to 2 bucks or so, we can lower our prices too.
At this rate, it won't be long before we're paying for empty containers.
Yes, Dan's photo do look like he is getting ready to sacrifice poor baby. Maybe we can get some formula donations to her in time?
@pecan 3.14159265: The baby's mad, see? She ain't gonna put up with no damn grocery shrink way that this Poppykins guy is always talkin about. She's gonna do somethin about it.
Dad was just making sure that the knives are well within her reach, should she decide to use them.
The look on that baby's face is hilarious.
Laines: Even as a kid (so, about 10-15 years ago) I never did like the taste (or lack thereof) of Koolaid.
My wife had to pump and dump for 2 weeks while on antibiotics after we had our first kid, that formula cost a fortune! I never give her a hard time about nursing since it saves us so much.
Unfortunately there are kids and moms out there that just can't do it. I won't get into the other debates, but financially that sucks.
On the one hand, the kid's getting 12.5% more Vitamin K. On the other hand, the kid's getting 27.3% less Magnesium...
The eyewash thing is WAY sneaky. I bet even people who check for this sort of thing wouldn't check a package that hasn't changed in shape or size.
When what goes back down to $2 or so, you mean gas? It already is at $2 per gallon!
I can't ever see products going down in price any time soon. They have seen that we as consumers can afford to take the hit...
@ilikemoney: try thousands. My step-grandbaby has to get the hypo-allergenic/sensitive tummy stuff and that big can? Lasts about 6 days at 4 months old?! 87 oz = 22 bottles @ 4 oz each = 6 days. Figuring she'll drink formula til 15 mos and she'll be drinking more ounces at a time as she gets older (til she gets to 6 - 8 oz 3 or 4 times per day) = roughly 110 of these cannisters @25 per = $2700. Without tax. Big round numbers since I'm doing this in my head with shoes on. Thank god little McWho (2 year old) was a boobie baby.
@salvatorecondegni: That would, in fact, be why this website has a tag devoted to it and regularly runs posts on the phenomenon. ;)
@bohemian: there have been high-profile child neglect cases where poor moms cut formula by making it with more water. HIDEOUS.
I'm not sure why this has suddenly become a great revelation. This down sizing has been going on for years. Add in the re-labeling gimmicks; " jumbo size ", " new and improved "," super concentrate", When in reality its the same product, same qnty (or more likly less).
The grocery store has nothing to do with the package sizes unless your buying a store brand.
I learned long ago to check price per lb, price per ounce.
I'd like to see if the amount/percentages of each ingredient are the same for the old and new formulations. Not to play devil's advocate, but take the example of concentrated liquid laundry detergent. You'll often find those in smaller bottles, even though they are as effective as the ones in the large bottles (they just aren't watered down as much, really).
Perhaps this new formulation has less fillers or ingredients that are as effective in smaller amounts. Of course, it would be nice if that was communicated to the consumer. But I can't tell as I don't have the packages in front of me.
Despite my hunch, I'm still leaning toward the paying the same for less explanation.
@Rectilinear Propagation: You've never met my husband, then. When buying containers of the Wal-Mart version of Noxema, he will actually pick up a bunch of containers to see which one contains the most product.
It is sneaky, though, with the eyewash. They're never expecting you to notice the weight difference either in your hand or on the bottle.
@Eric Sarnoski: It's called the Grocery Shrink Ray just because that's the kind of products affected. They're not blaming the grocery stores themselves.
@SMSDHubbard: Thanks - I even read that and it didn't make it through to the brain cell that would have allowed me to connect those dots.
Considering how little it actually costs to manufacture the formula, even the old price is ridiculous. I'm trying to find a good article to back myself up, but my Google Fu is weak today. This article, however, states it bluntly: formula is recession-proof. Babies have to eat, and if they choose not to/are unable to breastfeed, they can't avoid buying it.
I'm wondering if the people who spend their days trolling markets for shrink ray post fodder check back in several months to see if the packaging eventually shrinks, too. I always thought that the packaging remained the same size even though the contents were reduced because they didn't re-size until they ran out of stock of packaging in the original size.
Can someone research some of the older posts and see if the bottles, cans, etc. later were redesigned?
Ouch, we had to get the same $25 a can formula for my son back when he was a baby. That stuff adds up fast so this decrease sucks.